In the last 30 years, Jacksonville residents have seen John Gaughan grow from a young weather forecaster to the city’s chief meteorologist. He has covered the most extreme tropical weather in the area in his career. And now the News4Jax weather anchor has announced the bittersweet news of his departure. John Gaughan is leaving WJXT-TV to enjoy the next phase of his life. Read on to find out what the veteran meteorologist had to say about his exit from WJXT-TV.
John Gaughan Announces Retirement
John Gaughn’s mother used to place him in front of the TV during the weather report when he was three years old. Also, he used read about the weather while growing up.
Reading was the spark that ignited a lifelong interest in meteorology. He also wrote his first weather book with a pencil and crayons when he was just a kid.
Gaughn has always excelled in the sciences and mathematics, so those were his primary areas of study throughout high school. In his upper-level science class, he wrote a research paper about “the possible correlation between the location of the late summer subtropical high-pressure ridge over the western Atlantic Ocean and winter weather patterns over the eastern United States.”
He also won four awards and an honorable mention from the prestigious Westinghouse-Baltimore Science Fair for his project. John Gaughn graduated from the University of Maryland.
Gaughan started his professional career as chief meteorologist at WOLO-TV’s ABC Columbia in South Carolina. After that, he took on a position at WJKS-TV 17 (now WCWJ-TV 17) in Jacksonville before joining WFTV-TV in Orlando, Florida.
In 1992, John Gaughan joined WJXT-TV as a weekend meteorologist and later became the evening chief meteorologist in 2009. Since joining the team, he has forecasted the most extreme weather Jacksonville has experienced in 150 years. The area has been hit by five tropical cyclones and two major nor’easters in the past seven years.
But now, John Gaughan announced his retirement from the station. And his last day at WJXT-TV is May 31, 2023. After that, he will look forward to the new adventures of retired life.
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Gaughan plans to spend more time with his wife, Laurie, and their two daughters. His oldest daughter lives in Boulder, Colorado, while his youngest is a resident/intern working in surgery at Wake Forest, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
