Steve Horstmeyer Retires After Five Decades

Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. — Source: RudyBalasko / Getty

After 48 years of tracking storms, keeping viewers calm through tornado warnings, and delivering no-nonsense forecasts: Steve Horstmeyer is ready to hang up the clicker.

“I need a change. I’m really looking forward to it,” said Horstmeyer, 72, who will give his final forecast on WXIX-TV’s 10–11:30 p.m. newscast Thursday, Aug. 28.

For Cincinnatians, Horstmeyer wasn’t just another meteorologist. He was the one you turned to when the skies got ugly. Trained by Cincinnati’s first real TV weather authority, Tony Sands, Horstmeyer built a career on being straightforward, reliable, and calm when it mattered most.

The Cincinnati native first stepped into TV weather in 1977 as a volunteer under Sands at WLWT before going full-time a year later. He spent years at WKRC working mornings alongside Cammy Dierking and John Lomax before taking the chief meteorologist role at FOX19 in 2008, a move that helped cement the station as a serious contender in local news.

“When Fox 19 was able to get him to cross the street and join us, he brought with him so much experience, expertise, and authority to our news operation, which was the youngest in town,” said evening co-anchor Rob Williams.

From math teacher to chief meteorologist, Horstmeyer’s journey has been anything but ordinary. And while Cincinnati weather will always be unpredictable, one thing has stayed steady for almost five decades: Steve Horstmeyer showing up on screen, helping the city make sense of it.