Howard Morgan is a retired weather

Weather

Weather is the state of the atmosphere, to the degree that it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate...

 forecaster for Albuquerque, New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

 television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 station KOAT-TV

KOAT-TV

KOAT-TV, channel 7, is an ABC network affiliated television station serving Albuquerque, New Mexico. Its transmitter is located on Sandia Crest, northeast of Albuquerque. Syndicated programming on KOAT includes: Entertainment Tonight, Ellen, The Dr...

, Holdrege

Holdrege, Nebraska

Holdrege is a city in Phelps County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 5,636 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Phelps County.-Transportation:...

, Nebraska

Nebraska

Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....

 station KHOL-TV, and other stations in Kansas

Kansas

Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

 and Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

. He was known as "Uncle Howdy" during children's programming in all four states.

Morgan was born in Baumstown

Baumstown, Pennsylvania

Baumstown is an unincorporated community in Berks County, Pennsylvania, near the borough of Birdsboro. It is located at the junction of U.S. Highway 422 and Pennsylvania Route 345 in Exeter Township....

, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

.

Morgan started his career as a graphic artist at KHOL-TV, and in 1953, became a weather forecaster there.

Morgan first drew "Thermo," his trademark drawing of the Sun with eyes and a smile, on his second day of weather forecasts at KHOL. He used Thermo for most of his weather forecasts until greenscreens and computer graphics

Computer graphics

Computer graphics are graphics created using computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of image data by a computer with help from specialized software and hardware....

 became the norm for weather broadcasts.

In 1971, he moved to Albuquerque to work at KOAT.

While at KOAT, Morgan did a regular series of reports called "Gardenlore."

He retired from KOAT in November 1999 after a 46-year career. He can still be seen in commercials as a spokesman for an Albuquerque window manufacturer. He also appears in an ad for hearing aids.

Books

Howard Morgan, based on Gardenlore, wrote three books:

• Howard Morgan's Gardenlore (1979), Library of Congress
  Library of Congress
  The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
  
   number (LCCN
  Library of Congress Control Number
  The Library of Congress Control Number or LCCN is a serially based system of numbering cataloging records in the Library of Congress in the United States...
  
  ) 79083491
• Howard Morgan's More from Gardenlore (1981)
• Howard Morgan's Even More from Gardenlore (1981), LCCN
  Library of Congress Control Number
  The Library of Congress Control Number or LCCN is a serially based system of numbering cataloging records in the Library of Congress in the United States...
  
  80085145

All three were published by KOAT.