NEAR NORTH SIDE — Chicago’s happiest retiree knows the world is burning because of us.

“I feel guilty every time I get on the darn plane to Hawaii,” legendary local weatherman Tom Skilling told a packed house of scientists, environmentalists and superfans who flocked to City Club on Wednesday to hear him speak for $95 a seat.

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Skilling — who has gone snorkeling in Hawaii and hiking in Alaska since retiring from WGN in February 2024 — received a hero’s welcome back home in Chicago, the city where he’s famous for his long spiels about the iconically crummy weather. This time, he took aim at President Donald Trump.

Mass layoffs at federal agencies have impacted more than 800 people at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, home to the National Weather Service, in a brain drain of weather researchers “the public ought to know about,” Skilling said.

The skies parted for a torrential downpour as Skilling took the stage to deliver his message.

Skilling stayed an hour before and after his talk to shake hands and meet fans. A steady line of a half dozen people at a time formed at the front of Maggiano’s Banquet Hall, 111 W. Grand Ave., for an audience and sunshine from Skilling. The program started 10 minutes late.

“You look marvelous! You’re ageless!” Skilling told an old friend.

“Just call me Tom,” he told a new one.

City Club, a group that hosts events frequented by city power brokers, has hosted governors and mayors but “had never seen a line to say hello to a speaker before today,” CEO Dan Gibbons said.

Gifts given to Skilling included a custom University of Illinois football jersey and an offer to hang out at a Tommy Bahama restaurant in Hawaii.

“You’re one of the reasons Chicago feels like home for me,” Linda Givand, a former ComEd executive and Ohio transplant, told Skilling before walking away with a smile and a selfie.

“My son is obsessed with tornadoes now,” another woman said.

“I’m your biggest fan,” said Jake Eisendrath, who met Skilling on a middle-school trip to WGN over a decade ago.

“He’s gone above and beyond to tell you why the weather is happening,” Eisendrath said. “He’s on his own level.”

Skilling said he was “a little embarrassed” by all the attention.

“When you put an ugly face like this on a powerful medium for four and a half decades, you get a level of recognition,” Skilling said. “But I’ve always loved talking to people anyway, and I see things going on in my country that concern me, and I think those of us with a level of recognition should stand up and say, ‘Wait a minute.'”

Don Wuebbles — a Nobel Peace Prize-winning scientist who advised the Obama administration on climate change and spoke with Skilling on the City Club panel, titled “Forecasting the Future” — said he’s used to waiting around for his friend to wrap lengthy conversations with fans.

“It happens at our table at restaurants, too,” Wuebbles said. “I’ve always said Tom draws the crowd, and then they have to stay to listen to me.”

Wuebbles, Skilling and UIC Chancellor Marie Lynn Miranda warned the crowd the Trump administration could defund climate research from weather balloons to labs at nonprofits and universities.

In recent years, Chicago has seen less snowfall, warmer average temperatures, intensifying storms and swings in Lake Michigan’s water level.

“This is not a time to be cutting,” Skilling said. “There’s a level of scientific ignorance.”

Wuebbles called Skilling, 73, a weatherman from a skeptical generation who learned to embrace the hard truths about a warming planet.

“We just want to continue to make a difference,” Wuebbles said. “An actor can act until they’re 90-plus. Why can’t we continue to try to bring science to people?”

Since retirement, Skilling has replaced “chasing Mother Nature every day for the morning news” for “slower projects I can dig more deeply into.”

He’s done special reports for WGN about an Apollo 13 astronaut , how airline pilots are briefed on the weather and the Argonne National Laboratory’s supercomputers building better forecasts and studying how cancer spreads.

On getaways to Hawaii, Skilling likes to record the Kilauea volcano erupting “both day and night.” He held an octopus while snorkeling and is trying to learn how to use a GoPro. In Alaska, he likes to cook.

“But I’m mostly a microwave fajita kind of guy,” Skilling said.

When Skilling’s back in Chicago, the weatherman likes to walk for miles along the lake with big headphones on. But he’ll still stop to talk to you.

“I love Motown, Celtic music. I like ethereal stuff, new wave stuff, and what is it called, yacht rock, something that’s pretty and reaches into the soul,” Skilling said. “I love a day where there’s a full-flush northeast wind, bringing the waves in and watching them crash against the breakwaters. I just think that’s fascinating.”

A young Skilling fan, 5-year-old Alex Gibbons, jumped into Skilling’s interview with Block Club to ask if Chicago has ever had an EF5 tornado.

“Oak Lawn in 1967 came close,” Skilling said. “Children died.”

The rest of Skilling’s conversations were cut short as tables and chairs were pulled from around him and the banquet hall was cleared out for its next event.

“Oh, do we have to go?” Skilling asked.

Not until the waitstaff also got their picture with him.

“I love what you say about the weather,” a server said.

Skilling took one on his phone, too.