WTAE parts ways with meteorologist Ray Petelin

Meteorologist Ray Petelin may no longer be with WTAE, but a weatherman isn’t going to stop looking up at the sky and down at the radar.

“I’m still doing what I’ve always been doing,” Petelin said Wednesday, shortly after broadcasting the weather live from his professional Facebook page. “But now I have some more time to do it.”

Petelin’s final day at the television station was Tuesday, according to WTAE News Director Jim Parsons.

“We thank him for his time at WTAE and wish him the best in his next endeavor,” Parsons said.

Petelin joined Pittsburgh’s ABC affiliate in 2011 as the weekend meteorologist, after working at a TV station in Erie since 2003. The Ashtabula, Ohio, native graduated from the University of Akron and earned a meteorology certificate from Mississippi State University.

On Monday, Petelin posted on Facebook that parting ways with WTAE was “not my decision, but that’s life. I choose to look at this as an opportunity, rather than a setback. The sun came up this morning.”

And then, in a very Pittsburgh moment, he added, “…You can’t see it, but it’s there.”

Petelin said he plans to continue with regular Facebook weather updates, much as he did during his time at WTAE.

“I’ve always been posting from home,” he said. “If there’s severe weather, I know it’s important to people, so I hop on, check the radar and track storms for people from home.”

Often times, he said, weather is not always severe enough for a news station to break into its regular programming.

“But people still have questions and want that content, so I try to give it to them,” he said.

Follow Petelin’s weather updates on his Facebook page .

Patrick Varine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Patrick at 724-850-2862, pvarine@tribweb.com or via Twitter @MurrysvilleStar.