Bob Ryan (meteorologist)
Bob Ryan is a retired American meteorologist who spent decades forecasting the weather on television. He most recently forecast for WJLA (ABC7) in Washington, D.C., and before that he was chief meteorologist at WRC-TV (NBC) in Washington from 1980 to 2010.
He was the Today Show’s first on-air meteorologist, a landmark role in network TV. When Willard Scott left Today, Ryan moved to WRC to take over the forecast duties there.
In early 2010, reports said he might switch to WJLA as NBC cut newsroom positions; he left WRC after the Olympics in February 2010. In May 2010, he joined WJLA and debuted on May 17 during the 5 p.m. news, later becoming the 11 p.m. meteorologist.
Education: He earned a B.S. in physics and an M.S. in atmospheric science from the University at Albany, SUNY. He worked as an atmospheric researcher at Arthur D. Little, then as a meteorologist at WPRI-TV in Providence and WCVB-TV in Boston before joining The Today Show and WRC.
Ryan served as president of the American Meteorological Society, the first and only president to have spent his career in broadcast weather. He also wrote the Weatherwise Almanac for 25 years, a yearly guide to weather events and historical data.
He retired from WJLA on May 22, 2013, after 33 years of TV weather forecasting.
This page was last edited on 28 January 2026, at 20:24 (CET).