Career
He has retired from broadcasting after nearly 61 years, working the last twenty at KUSI-TV in San Diego. Coleman started his career in 1953 at WCIA in Champaign, Illinois, doing the early evening weather forecast and a local bandstand show called At The Hop while he was a student at University of Illinois. After receiving his journalism degree in 1957, he became the weather anchor for WCIA's sister station WMBD-TV in Peoria, Illinois.
Coleman was also a weather anchor for KETV in Omaha, WISN-TV in Milwaukee and then WBBM-TV and WLS-TV in Chicago. Coleman became the original weathercaster on what was then the brand-new ABC network morning program, Good Morning America. He stayed seven years with this top-rated program anchored by David Hartman and Joan Lunden.
In 1981, he persuaded communications entrepreneur Frank Batten to help establish The Weather Channel, serving as TWC's CEO and President during the start-up and its first year of operation. After being forced out of TWC, Coleman became weather anchor at WCBS-TV in New York and then at WMAQ-TV in Chicago, before moving to Southern California to join the independent television station, KUSI-TV in San Diego, in what Coleman fondly calls "his retirement job." Coleman abruptly left KUSI while on vacation in April 2014, with no on-air farewell. Coleman says he became an "outspoken skeptic" of global warming in 2007 after watching NBC's 'Green is Universal' week, where the studio lights were cut for portions of Sunday Night Football's pre-game and half-time shows.
He has called climate change the "greatest scam in history". He claimed "The polar ice is increasing, not melting away. Polar Bears are increasing in number."
Critics of Coleman have questioned his lack of academic credentials, and note that he has not conducted actual research in the area of climate change.