FARGO -- When John Wheeler started his job as a WDAY-TV meteorologist in Fargo-Moorhead on May 6, 1985, he didn't plan to stay long.
Three years tops, and he'd be on to a larger television market.
Though he knew the wildly-variable weather here would make for interesting work, he saw himself settling in somewhere with hills rather than a flat expanse.
Raised in the South, Wheeler also didn't know a soul.
A few prospective jobs went to second and third interviews but never past that because he was being "really picky," he said.
In truth, Fargo-Moorhead was really growing on him.
"After a while, I just kind of quit looking," he said.
Forty years later, at age 64, Wheeler is really glad he stayed put.
"That's been a great decision, by the way," he said, sitting in the sun-dappled living room of his Fargo home.
A great decision, indeed, for his family, WDAY-TV and viewers, who've been guided by Wheeler's expertise and calm demeanor through blizzards, tornadoes and thunderstorms.
The long run came to an end, however, on Friday, May 16, when Wheeler gave his farewell forecast.
He said in retirement, he's not going anywhere.
"I'm a Red River Valley person now, and very happy to have had this career, very fortunate to have had this career. I couldn't consider myself any luckier," he said just before the newscast sign-off.
The thought of retiring used to scare him but no longer does.
"I'm feeling myself aging ... My health is fine, I just need to have the time to live my life," Wheeler said.
Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Wheeler would move with his family to Alabama, Wisconsin and then Iowa, with his parents pursuing different educational opportunities and teaching jobs along the way.
He recalls taking an interest in weather during elementary school, telling classmates about the latest forecast.
"I had other interests too. I thought I was going to be an astronaut in the 60s," he said.
After high school, Wheeler planned to become an engineer.
In tests that gauge a person's college and career interests, he scored very high in science and communications, but not very high in engineering.
Still, a guidance counselor was pushing four-year math students like Wheeler in that direction, so he enrolled in engineering at Iowa State University in Ames. He switched majors soon after, realizing it wasn't for him.
"I was fortunate that Iowa State has a meteorology program. If I had gone to the University of Iowa, I'd probably be an engineer today, or something else, an English major," he said.
His first job was doing the weekend weather at WOI-TV in Ames.
Nine months later, he was hired at WDAY-TV in Fargo.
The first big spring storm outbreak happened just one day after his first day on air, and Wheeler said he wasn't quite ready.
"I had never thought to ask and nobody had told me exactly what counties were in the viewing area, so I was probably doing a few warnings that were superfluous," he said.
When it's 95 degrees and blowing like a blast furnace one day with a chance of frost the next, forecasting this area's weather is never dull and Wheeler has pretty much seen it all.
"Four decades of watching the weather here, one thing that's happened to me is it becomes harder to be impressed," he said.
Still, there are circumstances that truly stand out.
The drought and heat wave of 1988 was the most extraordinary weather he's been associated with, he said.
"Total crop failure. Temperatures as hot as 106. It did not rain. Dust storms all through April and May," Wheeler said.
In June that year, snowplows were brought out of storage to remove piles of dirt from roads, and front end loaders cleared dirt from ditches to make room for snow in the winter.
"They didn't practice very good tillage back then. We lost a lot of topsoil that summer," Wheeler said.
The winter of 1996-97, which led to a devastating flood that spring, is second on his list.
Before then, he said record snowfall around Fargo was in the 80- to 90-inch range.
"And then all of a sudden, there was 117 inches that winter. It still stands as being just an extraordinary amount of snow," Wheeler said.
The summer storm season is the most problematic for Wheeler on a personal level, and the reason he chose to retire at this time of year.
Severe thunderstorms and the occasional tornado pop up with regularity on summer weekends, making it difficult for him to completely disconnect from work and enjoy time off.
If one of the younger meteorologists happens to be on duty at the time, they might need help and Wheeler doesn't hesitate to offer.
"That makes me a little crabby. Not crabby because I have to go in. It's the eight or 10 hours before that, not knowing when I'm gonna go in that's actually hard," he said.
Besides having to be on-call for bad weather, there are a few other aspects somewhat unique to a broadcasting career that Wheeler said he won't miss.
Working a late newscast every night means he typically goes to bed around 1 a.m., and by the time he's up and ready the next morning, there's not enough opportunity to do other things.
He also kept tabs on work texts and emails in case something needed troubleshooting before heading into the TV station.
"Having a day that is off-center from everybody ... has created some stress," he said.
While the majority of viewers have been kind and appreciative of his work, a few have approached him in public over the years to vent about one thing or another.
"I don't quite understand the level of anger that some people have about some local person on TV," he said.
Wheeler learned a while back to step away from some of the chatter, especially on social media, where a lot of people have no filter.
"I don't read those comments because I wouldn't sleep," he said.
While he'll still pay attention to the weather in retirement, he won't have to worry about forecasting it and trying to be as accurate as possible.
He's written his final Weather Talk, a daily, short feature in The Forum highlighting some aspect of weather or science, which he said has been one of his favorite work tasks. The feature will be discontinued with Wheeler's retirement.
He's looking forward to more time with his wife, Emily, a longtime local artist, and their two adult children, as well as more time to travel, garden, bike, cross country ski and cook.
He said he might even write a little.
"I would like to just write without a deadline and see what happens. And if something gets written that might be readable, then we'll see," Wheeler said.