Dan Chandler

Dan Chandler
Dan Chandler in 1994
Born	(1938-12-04)December 4, 1938 Valders, Wisconsin, U.S.
Died	February 7, 2023(2023-02-07) (aged 84)
Occupation(s)	Voice talent, The Weather Channel (1980s-1990s)
Known for	Narrator for The Weather Channel

Dan Chandler (December 4, 1938 – February 7, 2023), also known as Dan Huth, was an American voiceover artist best known as the official voice talent of The Weather Channel during the 1980s and 1990s. His narration work was found anywhere on the network from station bumpers and idents to the local forecast.

Early life

Chandler, possibly born as Dan Huth, was born in Valders, Wisconsin, on December 4, 1938. He would subsequently be raised on Anna Maria Island, Florida.

Career

Prior to working with The Weather Channel, Chandler was known to have had worked in radio and TV spots. He first began working on radio around 1960 at WBIL (1410 AM, now WQBQ) in Leesburg, Florida. Later, at WONN (1230 AM) in Lakewood, Florida, he then worked the six to midnight shift and did some production. Dan left the same year for Miami where he worked at several stations, beginning with WCKR-FM (97.3, now WFLC), using the air-name "Johnny Midnight". By 1962, he had moved across town to WKAT (1360 AM, now WQVN) in North Miami, Florida. By 1963, he was at WIOD (610 AM) in Miami, a job that lasted for two years. In 1965 he was known as Dan Chandler at WQAM (560 AM) where he was Program Director for five years.

Dan picked up some acting credits in his spare time while working in Miami that included the NBC-TV Flipper series which was filmed in the area, and a running part in a syndicated series called The Everglades where he played the game warden's sidekick and airboat guide, Pete Hammond. Dan left radio in 1970 to find a video production company with another WQAM deejay, Rick Shaw. He also worked for as a morning show host on WSB-TV in Atlanta in the early 1980s for Good Morning Atlanta. In addition to television, he even appeared in a promotional video for Chevrolet in 1981 for the El Camino, as well as a video about trains called Railroads of North America in 1994.

Exact specifics for when he joined and left The Weather Channel are unknown. While with TWC, he became the go-to narration voice for various aspects of the network. He would contribute his voice to the network's spots, bumpers, idents, station ID segments, and the local forecast itself. His narration during the local forecast ended around June 1995 due to technical limitations in the network's ability to implement the narration with updates to the Weather Star 4000's flavors.

Involvement with the WeatherStar 4000 Simulator

The developers of Taiganet's WeatherStar 4000 Simulator reached out to Chandler in spring 2010, hoping that he might be able to contribute narrations to the simulator in time for the upcoming version three release of the program. It took around a year before he responded, but when the developers put forward their proposal, Chandler agreed to contribute, recording new narrations in as much of a similar fashion to his original narrations as possible. Simulator graphics developer polarbear recalled how the developers worked with Chandler on the narrations:

In order to recreate the individual phrases as best as possible, a gathering of the best and clearest local forecast recordings from 1990-1995 was made. Each phrase was edited from the song it came from and was grouped by the flavor it was used with (i.e., "1992 K.mp3"). The Weather Channel used four versions of the narration, the first with the 4000's debute for the first six months of 1990. The next was introduced in July 1990, the third in July 1991 and the forth and last in August 1992. Each of these periods was distintive enough to require recordings be made for all four. There wasn't recordings available of every flavor and phrase from the earliest version, so approximation (sic) were made. With these sample files and a script to follow, Dan was able to begin the task of recording each phrase, following how the original sounded as close as possible. In some cases, the we felt the original takes weren't close enough to the samples and Dan offered to retake those phrases. The narration was discontinued by May of 1995 as the newer flavors containing the local update were taking over. These flavors required from zero, up to three local update screens which would dynamically change the location of most of the screens throughout the local forecast segment. Since the narration was sent with the music from TWC, it was impossible to continue doing voice overs. However, the emulator has no such limitations, so Dan was also able to record narrations to go along with the 1995 local update flavors.

— polarbear (Taiganet graphics developer), 2012

The public reception of the simulator's narration update, bundled with other additions in version three, was overwhelmingly positive. In return, Chandler responded:

You know so well, when you and the team embarked on this project that there was nothing in it for you beyond the personal satisfaction of a demanding job meticulously and well-done.  To get "attaboys" is icing on the cake.
Thank you all for including me in your labor of love, and—[Bill Goodwill, simulator developer]—for sharing the incredible reactions. They go far beyond anything I could have expected.

— Dan Chandler, 2012

Death

Chandler passed away on February 7, 2023, at the age of 84.

Personal life

Chandler was survived by his wife, Penny, two sons, and four grandsons. Aside from his duties in the broadcasting and voiceover industries over the years, he involved himself in reading, writing (including songs), and photography. Chandler volunteered with community organizations and supported the Boys and Girls Clubs and his local thrift store.

See also

• Vocal Local - post-Chandler narration system developed by The Weather Channel
• Weather Star 4000

External links

• Dan Chandler's IMDb profile