Steve Pool: 1953–2023

Today, the fam­i­ly of leg­endary KOMO 4 mete­o­rol­o­gist Steve Pool shared the sad news that Pool died this week due to com­pli­ca­tions from ear­ly onset Alzheimer’s. A fix­ture in the local media land­scape for decades, Pool was a tal­ent­ed, car­ing jour­nal­ist who was known for his opti­mism and excel­lent fore­casts. He will be deeply missed by many friends, col­leagues, and KOMO viewers.

His pass­ing was announced in a note post­ed by his fam­i­ly on Face­book.

Dear Friends,

I am here to share the sad news that my dear hus­band, my love, has passed away from ear­ly-onset Alzheimer’s dis­ease. He fought this ter­ri­ble dis­ease pri­vate­ly for sev­er­al years, and with every ounce of his being. He told me mul­ti­ple times to “nev­er count me out” and we nev­er did. This past week it became too much and he passed away peace­ful­ly. We are so blessed to have had him in our lives. He was an extra­or­di­nary man, hus­band, father and good friend to many. Please know that he tru­ly loved his job and this com­mu­ni­ty and felt so priv­i­leged to be a part of your lives. You were all so good to him and there­by good to us. Our hearts are irre­triev­ably bro­ken. Please say a prayer for him and our family.

Much love, Michelle and our daugh­ters Lind­sey and Marissa

Our con­do­lences to Michelle, Lind­sey, Maris­sa, and the Pool family.

Born Novem­ber 5th, 1953, Pool grew up in West­ern Wash­ing­ton. He went to Tyee High School in SeaT­ac and served his peers as stu­dent body pres­i­dent. He went to col­lege at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton and became a KOMO intern dur­ing those years. After he grad­u­at­ed in 1978 with a major in com­mu­ni­ca­tions, he was hired to work at the sta­tion full time as a reporter, cov­er­ing hard news and sports.

A few years lat­er, in 1984, when the sta­tion need­ed some­one to take over the weath­er beat, Pool assumed his icon­ic role as KOMO’s chief fore­cast­er, after return­ing to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton to study the atmos­pher­ic sci­ences. He would remain in that role for over three decades until his retire­ment in 2019.

Even when the weath­er was bad, watch­ing Pool deliv­er a fore­cast was very enjoy­able. His reas­sur­ing pres­ence was some­thing KOMO view­ers could rely on.

In this clip cre­at­ed by our team at NPI from our local broad­cast tele­vi­sion media archives, you can see Steve at his best, deliv­er­ing a fore­cast on a beau­ti­ful, sun­ny May spring day back in 2013, with a lead-in from anchor Dan Lewis.

Although Pool spent his career at KOMO, he was also nation­al­ly renowned thanks to his work fill­ing as a guest fore­cast­er on ABC’s Good Morn­ing America.

“His awards include Sev­en Emmy Awards, a Sig­ma Delta Chi Soci­ety of Pro­fes­sion­al Jour­nal­ism award, New York Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val Gold and Bronze Medals, Nation­al Acad­e­my of Tele­vi­sion Arts and Sci­ences, Amer­i­can Scene Award, a “Tel­ly” Award, the pre­mier award hon­or­ing out­stand­ing local, region­al, and cable TV com­mer­cials and pro­grams, and an Acad­e­my of Reli­gious Broad­cast­ing Life­time Achieve­ment Award,” his offi­cial biog­ra­phy notes.

“He has appeared more than sev­en­ty times on ABC’s Good Morn­ing Amer­i­ca and is also part of the news team that was the 2001 and 2008 win­ner of the Edward R. Mur­row Award for the best news­cast in Amer­i­ca. In 2004 he was induct­ed into the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Hall of Fame.”

Pool’s col­leagues dur­ing his more than forty years at KOMO includ­ed Lewis, Kathi Goertzen, Ken Schram, Lynn Espinoza, Elisa Jaffe, Bruce King, Bryan John­son, Mary Nam, Con­nie Thomp­son, Mol­ly Shen, and Eric Johnson.

The full list is much, much longer.

John­son filed a sto­ry a few weeks ago remem­ber­ing what he con­sid­ers the “Dream Team” — Lewis, Goertzen, Pool, and King.

Lewis is now the only liv­ing mem­ber of that quartet.

John­son, who suc­ceed­ed King on the sports beat and remains with KOMO today, remem­bered his time work­ing with Pool very fondly:

Steve Pool start­ed work­ing full-time at KOMO TV in 1977, although he’d already done some work for them as a stu­dent at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Washington.

He start­ed with sports, did some straight news, and even­tu­al­ly set­tled on weath­er. His smooth, easy charis­ma lit up the TV screen for more than thir­ty years.

The old tapes don’t lie. He was a natural.

“Steve Pool is such a like­able guy,” Dan says.

“One of the most tal­ent­ed peo­ple I’ve ever known. I mean, beyond his great work with the weath­er, he was fun­ny, he could sing.

Steve, I think, was a born entertainer.”

We talked a lit­tle about just how good he was.

So good that he filled in on Good Morn­ing America.

So good that peo­ple were drawn to him like a magnet.

“Peo­ple love Steve Pool, man, and I love Steve Pool,” Dan says. “He was such a fun guy to work with.”

And a fun guy to get weath­er updates from.

When the Apple Cup rolled around each autumn, the game fre­quent­ly became an object of ban­ter among the mem­bers of the Dream Team. Goertzen, a diehard Cougar fan, delight­ed in spar­ring on-air with Pool, a proud Husky.

The last Apple Cup of the Pac‑8/10/12 era will be played tomorrow.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton offered this trib­ute: “RIP to UW alum Steve Pool, ’77. Always a sta­ple in our Puget Sound com­mu­ni­ty, Steve will be deeply missed. Steve’s leg­endary career with KOMO news spanned more than four decades, serv­ing as one of our region’s most trust­ed weathermen.”

Seat­tle May­or Bruce Har­rell wrote: “A Seat­tle news leg­end and pio­neer, Steve Pool was kind and authen­tic – he epit­o­mized pro­fes­sion­al­ism. I join in mourn­ing his pass­ing and send my heart­felt con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly. Steve’s lega­cy will live on through the peo­ple and caus­es he supported.” 

Essex Porter, one of our favorite reporters of all time, wrote: “Steve was already anchor­ing when I arrived in Seat­tle in 1982. His excel­lence and ele­gance helped to open the door and hold it open for me and all the oth­er Black tele­vi­sion jour­nal­ists in Seat­tle. A leg­end. Con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly and friends.”

Jesse Jones, anoth­er Seat­tle broad­cast tele­vi­sion icon, wrote: “RIP Steve. What an incred­i­ble man. Could have worked at any lev­el any­where. And yet, he stayed to serve our com­mu­ni­ties. Legendary.”

“Steve Pool’s excel­lence is a crit­i­cal exam­ple for the mis­sion and cred­i­bil­i­ty of SABJ [the Seat­tle Asso­ci­a­tion of Black Jour­nal­ists],” said Jer­ry Brew­er, SAB­J’s Pres­i­dent. “He was too good, too cool, too classy and too gen­uine to be denied. We’ll nev­er for­get that we stand on the shoul­ders of an incred­i­ble jour­nal­ist whose tal­ent was matched only by the kind and unselfish way he went about doing the job.”

Pool main­tained his ties with KOMO, now owned by Sin­clair, after con­clud­ing his employ­ment there. “Steve con­tin­ued to make con­tri­bu­tions to KOMO 4 even in retire­ment,” the sta­tion explained. “He came up with the idea for the doc­u­men­tary How Seat­tle Changed The World, which pre­miered on KOMO 4 in Feb­ru­ary 2023. The doc­u­men­tary shares how peo­ple in the Seat­tle area cre­at­ed new prod­ucts, ser­vices, and inno­va­tions that made life eas­i­er and bet­ter for peo­ple all over the world. The doc­u­men­tary was ded­i­cat­ed to Steve Pool.”

Steve Pool epit­o­mized the best of Cas­ca­dia. He was a first-rate broad­cast­er, but more impor­tant­ly, he was a good per­son. A true role mod­el who treat­ed oth­ers with kind­ness and respect. That is what our world des­per­ate­ly needs more of.

Thank you for every­thing, Steve.