Greg Fishel is no longer on local TV, but you can once again get his Triangle forecasts

It’s been more than three and a half years since Greg Fishel left WRAL, but he’s still forecasting Triangle weather — and through a new endeavor, videos of his daily weathercasts are available to watch online for a small fee.

The former chief meteorologist — once described by The News & Observer as the Triangle’s most famous weatherman — in early August launched a subscription-based Patreon account, where he provides video weathercasts online for paying subscribers.

The forecasts, just as they did when he was at WRAL, focus on weather in central North Carolina and, Fishel told The N&O in an interview, provide viewers with need-to-know information without “hype” or exaggeration.

Fishel’s Monday through Friday weathercasts are available as recorded videos on the platform at a subscription level of $3 per month. Subscribers can pay $5 per month to join the higher membership level, which provides subscribers with the weathercasts, plus two additional weather education videos each week.

The Patreon platform also allows Fishel to provide written updates to members, along with photos. Eventually — possibly as early as this weekend, when remnants of Hurricane Ian are projected to make their way to North Carolina — he may try out the platform’s live streaming capability, he said.

Regaining his ‘passion’ for weather

The idea to start a Patreon came from a conversation with one of Fishel’s sons in June, he said. He worked on building his account and getting the proper weathercast equipment set up for about two months before launching.

He purchased a green screen and now films the weather videos each day in his second-bedroom-turned-studio at his place near the ocean in Myrtle Beach, where he’s lived for the past 15 months.

“I’ll be very honest with you: When I started it, I really wondered if I had it in me to commit to this on a daily basis,” Fishel said. “And every day that has gone by, I’ve gotten more comfortable.”

Joining the online platform marked a stark and ironic change for Fishel, who said he “abhorred” social media during his later years at WRAL.

“It was just one more thing to do, and I felt like there was no way I could live up to the expectations of the people I interacted with,” he told The N&O.

But with about 900 subscribers on Patreon in the less than two full months that he’s been on the platform, it’s clear that Triangle viewers still look to Fishel as a trusted source of local weather-related information — and are willing to pay for it.

“I’m just very grateful, you know, that people still do remember me and are willing to fork out a few bucks a month to see what I do,” Fishel said.

Fishel said the endeavor has also helped him tap into a part of himself that he’d been missing since leaving local TV in 2019.

“I feel like I’ve rediscovered my passion for the weather, which may have waned a little bit over the last few years,” Fishel said. “But now it’s back and I couldn’t be happier.”

Difference between TV and online weathercasts

One of the key differences between his time on local TV and his Patreon, Fishel said, is the time — or lack thereof — that he has to deliver information.

On TV newscasts, he said, he was generally given about three minutes during a 30-minute newscast to give his forecast. If he went over that time, it cut into other segments of the show.

“A 30-minute newscast is precisely timed for each element,” Fishel said. “And they’ve got to do that, or something’s gonna get left out or shortchanged, so I get that.”

But on Patreon, he said, he has more “freedom.”

“Now that I’m on my own, if there’s one extra thing that I want to talk about, I can, you know, spend another minute and talk about it,” Fishel said. “And to have that freedom, without being sort of locked into a certain span of time, I find really, really nice.”

One thing will remain the same between his TV forecasts and those on Patreon, though: Fishel’s emphasis on weather education and the science behind the weather.

When he first came to WRAL in the 1980s, he said, the station’s consultants didn’t think viewers wanted to be educated about the weather and science — but Fishel “didn’t believe that.” Throughout his time at the station, he became “a bit of a teacher to his audience,” The N&O previously reported.

“I just sort of blazed my own trail and found out that people do want to be educated,” Fishel said.

Now, on his Patreon site, members who pay $5 per month will get access to two weather education videos per week, furthering his trail of educating viewers.

Living in Myrtle Beach

Since leaving WRAL — the station said at the time it was due to a “personnel matter” — Fishel has relocated a couple of times.

He moved to South Florida in 2020, and now lives in Myrtle Beach, where he’s been enjoying his time by the ocean since June 2021.

“I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would be able that I would live in a place where I could see the ocean every day,” Fishel said. “I think I saw the ocean for the first time when I was about 10, and I’ve never gotten over it. It’s like I could just sit there and stare at it all day long if I had the time to do it. So to have that opportunity, I feel really very lucky and very blessed.”

Fishel previously worked at Priogen Energy, where he helped energy traders make decisions on when to buy and sell on the energy market, before he lost that job to the pandemic.

In addition to his new Patreon venture, he also serves as a spokesperson for Fayetteville-based Blanton’s Air, Plumbing and Electric. In that role, he’s appeared in TV commercials for the company and provides regular “O’Fishel” forecasts with the company’s branding on his professional Facebook page.

Fishel said he gets back to Raleigh and the Triangle every couple of months or so.

What is Patreon? How do I sign up?

Patreon is a membership-based online platform where creators of all kinds — musicians, visual artists, graphic designers, online personalities and more — can provide “exclusive access to their work” and build “a deeper connection with their communities.”

Patreon creators, such as Fishel, provide content and benefits on their account pages, which users can generally only access as paying subscribers. (Some creators may also offer some free content.)

Subscriptions may be tiered, with more expensive memberships offering more benefits than the lower tiers. In Fishel’s case, subscribers paying $3 per month get access to the Monday through Friday weathercast videos. Subscribers paying $5 per month get those videos, as well as two additional weather education videos each week.

To learn more about Patreon, visit patreon.com.

To access Fishel’s weather Patreon, visit patreon.com/fishweather.

N&O editor Brooke Cain contributed to this story.