John Hope, leading hurricane expert, dies

John Raymond Hope

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- One of the nation's leading hurricane forecasters and television meteorologists, John Raymond Hope, died Thursday of complications after heart surgery, a spokeswoman for The Weather Channel said.

Hope, who was 83, died in a hospital near Macon, Georgia.

"It's amazing how beloved he was," said The Weather Channel's Kathy Lane. "So many people are posting their condolences on our Web site message board."

One message read: "100 percent probability we will miss you."

Hope was the network's top hurricane forecaster for nearly 20 years, topping a career that began as a forecaster for NASA's John Glenn orbiting launch in 1962 and led to the top forecasting job at the National Hurricane Center.

His fellow forecasters expressed admiration for Hope.

"I think that I learned more from John Hope about tropical forecasts in the first hurricane season that I forecasted with him than I did in my entire time in school -- and in my previous professional career," said Stu Ostro of The Weather Channel.

Jim Wilson, the channel's senior meteorologist, paid his respects to Hope in cinematic terms. "He was the John Wayne of weather," he said.

In an interview published in 1997 in Hope's hometown newspaper, The Rocket Courier in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania, Hope talked about how he might be remembered:

"If my legacy can be that I have made a contribution to this nation being better prepared to cope with the devastation wrought by hurricanes, and to have helped in the success of my company, I am content."