PSU alumna joins WTAE as weekend meteorologist
After a summer that fluctuated between stifling heat and rainstorms, WTAE-TV is making extra sure it has Western Pennsylvania’s weather-forecasting needs covered.
Starting Friday, Channel 4 adds a fifth meteorologist: Kasey Reigner, a 23-year-old Franklin native and Penn State University graduate. She will take over weekend mornings for Brian Hutton Jr., who will move to a weekend evenings slot. Reigner will also do the occasional live-weather report on weekdays.
WTAE’s already robust lineup of weather prognosticators is led by chief meteorologist Mike Harvey and bolstered by Ashley Dougherty, Jeff Verszyla and Hutton, who was hired in March. In July, WTAE launched a new 4 p.m. newscast that included Versyzla to provide viewers with a late-afternoon weather fix.
“It’s another way that will make our station stand out, having a fifth person,” Reigner told the Post-Gazette. “I’m really excited and hopefully I add something to the team.”
WTAE also recently brought in Tom Garris to replace Chris Lovingood as a weekend morning anchor. Rostraver native Ashley Zilka will begin her new role as a Channel 4 nighttime reporter on Oct. 12. In August, the station lost reporter David Kaplan to to WTTGTV in Washington, D.C.
Although she was born in northwest Pennsylvania, Reigner spent most of her formative years in the Chicago suburbs before returning to the Keystone State to study meteorology and atmospheric sciences at Penn State. Journalism wasn’t always her calling, but she was always fascinated by weather. Reigner said her mom likes to tease her now because she was scared of thunderstorms as a kid and now forecasts the weather for a living.
During her senior year in Happy Valley, Reigner gained some broadcast experience doing some weekend work at WBRE-TV in the
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area. After graduating in May 2020, she quickly made her way to WAND-TV in Decatur, Ill., where she forecasted weather for a year and four months before accepting this role at WTAE.
Reigner still considers Pennsylvania home despite spending so much time elsewhere. Her previous experience with Pittsburgh specifically was mostly through visiting here with her college friends. She got here on Thursday and is settling in with her cat — who she rescued in April 2020 and is aptly named Doppler — but Reigner said she can already see why Pittsburgh is “not a hard city to fall in love with.”
She has covered some pretty gnarly weather in Decatur, particularly a snowstorm that dumped a foot of snow in a matter of a few hours. She was once on air for six hours nonstop covering a severe weather pattern in central Illinois.
Reigner is familiar with Pennsylvania weather, she said.
“You get a little bit of everything — hot summers, the nice fall foliage. Winters can be brutal. You get the lake effect snow from Lake Erie. You experience all four seasons here full-fledged. ... I know I’ve only been doing this for a little bit, but I definitely have a lot of experience covering all kinds of weather phenomenon.”
As self-professed “big science nerd” and loyal Penn Stater, Reigner credits “pretty much every connection and job I’ve made or gotten” to that university. She admitted that the chance to be closer to Penn State was part of the reason she accepted the WTAE position.
You will probably be able to spot her in the crowd at Beaver Stadium at some point during this college football season.
WTAE was a station that Reigner had always heard great things about, so she jumped at the chance to join its team of seasoned meteorologists.
“I’m already in love with this city,” she said. “I see why people stay here and never leave. I’m not a yinzer, but I hope that I become one someday. I can’t wait to build connections with the viewers and the area, and I can’t wait to get started.”