After 35 years, change in the forecast for WTVT's Shapiro

When Howard Shapiro first walked on the set of "Breakfast Beat" in 1974, it was a major culture shock.

"You're talking about a kid from New York, two days after arriving in Tampa, walking on the set and seeing Ernie Lee sitting on a stool singing gospel music," Shapiro recalls. "And there was a guy named Barefoot Brownie playing bass. I thought, 'Have I done something wrong here?'"

Morning television was very different 35 years ago. WTVT, Channel 13, started the day with "Breakfast Beat," which included farm and fishing reports, and country music by the late Lee, along with the news and weather.

Friday marks Shapiro's last morning show at the Fox affiliate. He is retiring at age 62.

"I have my health and I want to enjoy life while I can," he says.

After his goodbyes to co-workers and viewers of "Good Day Tampa Bay," Shapiro and wife Gail are headed to Phoenix, where there are no hurricanes and he can ride his motorcycle to explore new places.

"Howard is an institution here, he will be missed," says WTVT news director Mike McClain. Shapiro's replacement will be announced soon.

"I was never a TV guy," says Shapiro. "I was a forecaster and I am still a forecaster at heart. I came to television through the back door."

Born in Jersey City and raised in Long Island, he served in the Navy (including a year in Vietnam) before earning a meteorology degree in Oswego, N.Y. While there, he volunteered to give weather reports for free on a local cable channel.

This was his only TV experience before answering a job advertisement in the back of the American Journal of Meteorology.

"It was for a forecaster for something called Gulf Coast Weather Service," he says. "I didn't know that it was run out of a TV station."

Gulf Coast, a private weather service with clients worldwide, was founded by WTVT's legendary former chief meteorologist Roy Leep (now retired).

"Working for both Channel 13 and Gulf Coast was a dream job for me because Roy had all the latest weather forecasting tools and we were providing weather forecasts for everything from local citrus growers to companies throughout the world."

Shapiro recalls when weather maps were drawn on paper; red and blue markers were used for highs and lows. Hurricane maps had cardboard arrows that sometimes fell off.

He remembers predicting snow one day in January 1977. "The crew laughed at me because it just doesn't snow here," he says. "But I had not been here long enough to know that. When it happened, we opened the back door and I made a snowball and tossed it back at the camera."

He remembers all the hurricanes, like Elena in 1985, which had him and the rest of the crew working 42 hours straight. "But I loved it because that's when weather is exciting," he says.

"I still get a kick out of being on television," he says. "It's always been fun for me because I'm a meteorologist who got lucky. I'm going to miss it and I'm going to miss the people but I have spent over half my life here. Life has always been a series of adventures and it's time for a new one."