By age 12, Jym Ganahl had endured one too many incorrect weather forecasts for his liking. "I wasn't doing well in school, and all I cared about was if there was going to be a snow day," he said. "So when they kept predicting one and I would wake up and see the brown grass, I just decided to start studying weather." The decision paid off. Thursday, Ganahl will cap a 50-year career when, during the 5:30 p.m. newscast, he delivers his final regular forecast for WCMH-TV (Channel 4) - his employer since 1979.

By age 12, Jym Ganahl had endured one too many incorrect weather forecasts for his liking.

�I wasn�t doing well in school, and all I cared about was if there was going to be a snow day,� he said. �So when they kept predicting one and I would wake up and see the brown grass, I just decided to start studying weather.�

The decision paid off.

Thursday, Ganahl will cap a 50-year career when, during the 5:30 p.m. newscast, he delivers his final regular forecast for WCMH-TV (Channel 4) � his employer since 1979.

He will return during the 11 p.m. newscast to be honored by his colleagues.

Ganahl isn�t retiring, he said � only moving into a lower-profile role.

Retiring, after all, might prove difficult for the affable 67-year-old, who remains passionate about his profession.

�I love weather, and my job is my hobby,� he said. �Every day when I turn onto Olentangy River Road (to get to the Channel 4 studio), I still get excited.�

His interest was initially piqued in Waterloo, Iowa, where he grew up obsessed with snow (�I was a Currier and Ives kid�).

At age 17, five years after he started studying weather, he marched into the KWWL-TV studio to tell the station manager that he could deliver a more accurate forecast than what its weatherman was providing.

He got the job, which he kept while attending Northern Iowa University and filled again after a stint in the Army. He was hired by Channel 4 from Waterloo.

Even though technology, with its sophisticated radar and computer models, has revolutionized meteorology, Ganahl continues to share folksy observations with viewers.

�I can do a forecast just looking at the clouds and the wind,� he said. �For instance, if the clouds look like the scales of a fish, a mackerel-fin sky, it tells me it�s going to rain in the next 24 hours.�

Ganahl might also tell viewers what the sound of cicadas means or which planets are seen in the night sky.

�I�ve learned from him how to let your science geek come through on the air,� said Ben Gelber, a Channel 4 weekend meteorologist and Ganahl co-worker since 1980 � and sees himself as Robin to Ganahl as Batman.

�He taught me that, whatever your interest is, it�s OK, and you should share it with your audience.�

Throughout his career, Ganahl has retained his passion for snow.

Lauren � one of his two children, both daughters � recalled their yard as a gathering place for neighborhood children.

�He built snow forts that were 4 or 5 feet high and would hold several kids, and he would build two so you could have a battle,� she said. �We had an ice rink in the yard, too, and, when he was done with the 11 o�clock news, he would come home and hose it down to prepare a new surface for the next day.�

Several years ago, Ganahl moved from Upper Arlington to New Albany because, he said, he had determined that an average of 8 more inches of snow fell each year on the New Albany area.

He still puts an ice rink in the yard and uses a snow-making machine to ensure he has plenty of the white stuff all winter long.

�He�s comfortable in the cold,� said anchorwoman Colleen Marshall, a co-worker since 1984.

�He and I even argue about how cold the studio should be. We would kill each other if we lived together.�

Still, Marshall said, Ganahl is a beloved colleague.

�He�s one of those people you are always happy to see,� she said. �He�s never not fun to be around.�

Yet he has endured his share of personal difficulties.

In the early 1990s, he got a divorce and battled an addiction to painkillers. More recently, he developed congestive heart failure � which forced him off the air in late 2013 and early 2014.

�Some days I feel great, and other days the fluid builds up and I can�t walk to my car,� he said. �It affects your psyche, makes you feel more mortal.�

He signed a six-year contract in March 2012 with WCMH.

Ken Freedman, vice president and general manager of the station, declined to say whether Ganahl would work until the deal expires, noting only that his new role is still being defined.

For starters, Ganahl will become a regular on the �Football Friday Nite� broadcasts.

�I�d like to see him do things that will bring in his passion � maybe some sort of weather-folklore segments or tips,� Freedman said, �or maybe birthday shout-outs.�

David Mazza is expected to take over for Ganahl, who in 2008 was inducted into the Ohio Associated Press Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

Ganahl expects to have more time to spend with his daughters and nine grandchildren, and perhaps get more involved in charitable causes and community theater � having appeared in several productions during the past few decades.

Whatever he does, though, he will inevitably be looking at the clouds, checking on the wind and looking forward to the next snowfall.

�For someone to be able to do something they love so much throughout their entire adult life is a blessing,� Marshall said. �He has such a career to look back on. He should look back with pride."

kgordon@dispatch.com

@kgdispatch