Weathering Heights

Written by JOHN THOMASON

For WPTV Meteorologist Kate Wentzel, only part of her workday—specifically the 11 p.m. weekend slot on Channel 5—is spent in front of a green screen, reporting on South Florida’s ever-mercurial weather. But during her other shifts, she’s often out in the field, popping up at local events. “Our management team here really wants us to get out and interact—to talk to the people we’re broadcasting to. You don’t want it to be like, we’re behind this glass wall, and they’re out there. No, we want to be out in the community.”

As a result, the affable reporter—and very good sport—has appeared at nearly every major gathering from South Palm Beach up to Vero Beach. In the past year, Wentzel sat in the cockpit of an F-18 Hornet at the Palm Beach Air Show, rode a monster truck at the St. Lucie Fairgrounds, and posed with an oversized (and heavy) tennis racquet at the Delray Beach Open. She has conducted interviews at the Palm Beach Interna tional Boat Show, spoken about her job at educational institutions like the Learning Center in Palm Beach Gardens, and plummeted 200 feet down the Drop of Fear at the South Florida Fairgrounds on live television.“You think, ‘this will look good for the boss!’” she recalls, of the latter experience.“You get this courage when you’re on TV.”

(Wentzel is also active outside her day job—participating in sprint triathlons, playing pickleball and paddleboarding. Each year, as part of an inter-relay team, she paddles from Bimini to the Palm Beaches for the charity Crossing for Cystic Fibrosis.)

Wentzel has worked in television news for more than 25 years, in a full-circle career that has sent her ping-ponging between the U.S. coasts. Born in San Diego and raised largely in Northeastern Ohio, Wentzel harbored a fascination for the weather from a young age, when she would watch the local news every night with her parents.“My dad said to me, ‘you should think maybe about a career in that.’ It just planted a seed, when I was 13 or 14 years old,” she says.“I went to a seminar in high school with Cleveland broadcasters. It’s funny; meeting those local newscasters, to me, was like meeting celebrities.”

A longtime “summer girl,”Wentzel moved to the Palm Beaches for our warm climate, and to attend Palm Beach Atlantic University. As a junior in college, she joined Channel 5 as an intern. Work took her to a Tallahassee station after college, then Miami, then Santa Barbara, then Los Angeles, then West Palm Beach, then Tampa, then back to where it all began, Channel 5, which she rejoined in 2021.“I’m at a point now where I would like to call this my home,” she says.“I’m glad I did what I did in my 20s and moved around and saw a lot.”

Like most South Florida meteorologists, Wentzel has survived the combination of fear and excitement whenever a monster storm barrels into the region. She remembers filming from the Donald Ross Bridge during Hurricane Irma, and the 60-mph winds briefly lifting her off the ground.“It’s hectic, stressful but exciting,” she says.“I don’t want to see destruction. I will broadcast it and try to warn people, to prepare them the best I can, but I am never rooting for a storm.

“I show more personality when the weather’s nice,” she adds.“But when it’s severe, I don’t mess around. Then I’m giving you facts, and I’m not joking. Because when you’re talking severe weather, there could always be fatalities. If I’m out at a fair, I hope my personality shines through, and I want to have fun.”