I'm just now commenting to this really awful news. (I saw this news online Sunday morning, but never thought of posting here until now.)
Dave...in my opinion, the best person we saw on set in the last couple years. After his return, Dave kept treating us like open-minded weather students (and life students) and engaged us viewers in a professional, thoughtful, an often witty manner. Earlier in the year when they moved Dave to a solo block (although he would still appear often on Weather Underground later in the evening.) I thought the network screwed him and just put the old man alone. However, Dave was just as enlightening, engaging and easy to listen to solo as he was paired up with anybody. Running a couple hours solo, without any live help at the lab (they always used early morning taped lab segments) and without usually any live reporters, Dave was amazing was keeping the tone light, and letting us inside his world of fascination of the weather. (I remember one afternoon back in May on his WCL, he spent a good couple minutes showing us the satellite imagery where a severe weather system was setting up in the Midwest. The clouds coming from the east north of the warm front, the clouds coming from the south-south of the warm front, and the clouds moving from the west behind the cold front...almost every day Dave would have something small...yet neat...to point out to us viewers.
One of the very few things The Weather Channel has done right in the last 8 years was brining this lovable man back to our screens. It's just a real shame we did not get to enjoy him being on longer.
Rest easy, my friend, you'll be missed.