Viewers across the Philadelphia area were shocked when longtime 6abc meteorologist Cecily Tynan announced her retirement.
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But her Action News colleagues weren’t.
Tynan knew she wanted to retire back in 2020, when she signed her last contract with the station, which will end next month just as her youngest daughter heads off to college.
Since then, it had been something of an open secret inside the 6abc newsroom that Tynan’s time at the station was coming to an end. Any chance of her extending her contract ended a few years ago, when she experienced a short but intense bout of vertigo.
“For most of the day I couldn’t do anything, and I thought this must be what it’s like to be really old and infirm,” Tynan said. “I didn’t want to work all the way up to get to that stage, so it kind of sealed the deal.”
“I’m 57, which is relatively young, I guess, for retiring,” Tynan added. “But I wanted to retire while I’m healthy and active.”
So rather than stick around 6abc or move up the national ladder, Tynan and her husband, Greg, plan to split time between their homes in Delaware County and Florida after her last day, Aug. 31. She even turned down a chance to come back to host Philadelphia’s Thanksgiving Day parade, something she has done for close to 25 years. But the idea of being able to cook Thanksgiving dinner for her family for the first time won out.
“My children have never spent the night before Thanksgiving in their own home. We’ve always been in a hotel by the parade route, and I’ve never actually cooked,” Tynan said. “I’ve always picked it up from Whole Foods and reheated it.”
Tynan discussed her decision to retire, what’s next, and the best and worst weather events she has covered in her three decades at 6abc. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How do you plan on filling your retirement? Is it just going to be water-skiing and enjoying life?
That sounds pretty great!
That’s definitely a big part of it. That and visiting and watching all my daughters’ cross-country and track meets. I do want to stay active in animal rescue. … I’ve been really active with Providence Animal Center. I’m not sure exactly how I’ll do it, but I would definitely still want to be involved in that.
And I’d like to be able to go to bed at a decent hour.
What do you make of the reaction to your decision to retire?
I’ve been talking about it for months with my personal friends and they’d be like, “Philadelphia’s gonna freak,” and I’m like, “No, everyone’s gonna be fine.” I get it because I’ve been here for almost 31 years, so for a lot of people it seems like they’ve been watching me their whole lifetime. I think that Philadelphians have a special relationship with Action News that you don’t see in a lot of other cities or stations.
Are there any on-air memories that stand out?
One fun moment was when my earring fell off, and Jim Gardner got up. I saw him stand up and take off his microphone, and there was a frenzy behind the scenes, like, “Jim’s on the move. Traveler’s on the move.”
I tried to ignore it, and then I saw this white thing go behind my head, which I thought was a cloud animation. Then I realized it was his hair. It was hilarious and then it went viral — it was on Live With Regis and Kelly the next day and stuff, and that was fun.
Another one was when I was on the morning show with Monica [Malpass] and Rick [Williams], I would always try to crack them up by dancing off camera.
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One time Rick told the director, “Record Cecily when she’s dancing.” I dance like Elaine from Seinfeld, but worse. And so they aired that.
Is there a reason you stayed in Philadelphia vs. moving to national television?
I was born and raised in Newtown, Conn., so I always watched the New York stations.
I thought I would work here a few years and then go to New York. Then I had I had some opportunities early in my career to go up. I filled in on Good Morning America for a full week with Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer, which was a great experience. Gibson gave me a bottle of champagne when the week was over.
I talked about going to New York with Tom Kane, who was the general manager of WABC and was the GM when I came to Channel 6. … But then I spent the rest of my week there and was like, “Man, I want to get back to Philadelphia.”
Philadelphia felt like home. … Even when I walked in for my interview, I felt really at home with everyone and they were all nice and welcoming. No backstabbing at all.
Also, once you have children, that really grounds you. Your children are growing up in a community, and you don’t want to uproot them and leave.
What are the best weather events to cover, and what are the worst?
Snowstorms are the best, because everybody gets excited. I was here only a few months and we had the blizzard of 1996, the biggest snowstorm in Philadelphia’s history.
The worst are tornado warnings because we get a lot of those nowadays, because we have more advanced radar … and we do have a warmer climate. But tornado warnings freak people out, because I’m telling them to get in their basement.
I was at the airport back in the spring … and the people in front of me recognized me and thanked me. They live in Mullica Hill, and they were there when they had the tornado warning and I told them to get in their basement. They said they got their kids and their pets down there … and when they got out of the basement, their house was destroyed. But they were OK. … That really hit home about the importance of our job. I kind of teared up.
I’m sure you hear the other side, too, when the weather shifts and your forecast might be off.
Oh, yeah. The whole saying, “Oh, I wish I had a job where I could be wrong 90% of the time and still keep my job.” I get that all the time. Anybody who says that doesn’t really understand the complexities of the atmosphere. … But I feel like when you’re in the public eye, you do have to grow a thick skin. Especially in Philly. They’re going to tell you what they really think, so they’re not going to sugarcoat it.
Is there a weather thing people still get confused by?
One thing I think people really don’t understand is tornado watch vs. warning.
When a tornado watch is issued, it usually means there’s like a 2% chance of a tornado happening in your neighborhood. It’s pretty low.
I think a lot of people think when there’s a tornado watch it means warning, which it doesn’t. It just means heads up. The warning is when you have to go to your basement.