Keith Carson, the self-described “weather nerd” TV meteorologist who left Maine three years ago for a job at the Weather Channel, will return to Portland station WCSH-6 beginning Thursday.

Carson, 33, said Monday that while working at the Weather Channel was a great opportunity, he and his wife are looking for a more settled lifestyle. At the Weather Channel, a national cable channel based in Atlanta, Carson could find himself reporting on a snowstorm in Boston one week, then tracking tornadoes in Missouri and Oklahoma the next.

Keith Carson will forecast the weather during the noon and 5 p.m. weekday newscasts.

At WCSH, Carson will work the noon and 5 p.m. weekday newscasts, a schedule he says is a lot easier than the shifts most TV weathermen have to work, late nights or early mornings.

But Carson said he also chose to come back to WCSH, where he had worked for three years, because of how much people here care about the weather and how much they interact with local TV meteorologists. Forecasting the weather in New England is an experience that’s hard to replicate, he said.

“I looked at other places, maybe in California, but then I wondered whether I’d matter there,” said Carson, a native of Groton, Massachusetts. “Mainers are fervent about weather and they show it.”

Carson had been with the Weather Channel since 2013.

WCSH had room for another meteorologist because of the departure of Joe Cupo, who left the station in April after 37 years on the air there. Cupo took a voluntary retirement package offered by the station’s owner, TEGNA Media. WCSH President and General Manager Brian Cliffe said Monday that the chance to get Carson back is “exciting” and that, besides working on newscasts, Carson will contribute to the station’s social media and online weather efforts.

Todd Gutner will continue to be the meteorologist on weekday morning newscasts, while Tom Johnston will be on at 5:30 p.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m., Cliffe said. For a big storm, “it’ll be all hands on deck” and viewers will likely see forecasters working different shifts.

Carson said he first knew he wanted to be a TV meteorologist after watching coverage of a blizzard in 1993 that blanketed much of New England. His parents helped him get tours of local TV weather forecasting centers, and he volunteered as a teenager at the weather station on top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire.

After graduating with a degree in meteorology from Lyndon State College in Vermont, he worked for a while at a forecasting company in Massachusetts. He soon found that his personality was more suited to TV forecasting.

“I was there with all these quiet, scientific guys, and I was definitely the loudest guy in the room,” Carson said.

Related Stories