Meteorologist John Coleman, a co-founder of The Weather Channel, died Saturday, according to the network. He was 83.
Coleman, who was also the original meteorologist on Good Morning America, served as president and CEO of The Weather Channel the year after it was launched.
"Thirty-five years ago John Coleman and others founded The Weather Channel to answer a demand for around-the-clock weather information," The Weather Channel said in a statement released Monday. "We will forever appreciate his vision that we continue to this day as the demand for severe weather coverage and hyper-local forecasting is at an all-time high."
Originally from Texas, Coleman got his first job in TV will attending the University of Illinois. He worked at several stations in the Midwest, including WLS-TV and WMAQ-TV in Chicago, before jumping to ABC and GMA in 1975.
After leaving the Weather Channel, Coleman spent 20 years with KUSI-TV, San Diego, as a meteorologist. He retired in 2014.
More recently, Coleman expressed controversial views on climate change and insisted global warming is a hoax. Coleman's disagreements with the American Meteorological Society's official stance on climate change were a reason he left the organization, despite being named AMS Broadcast Meteorologist of the Year in 1983.
