Storm clouds formed two years ago over News Center Maine’s Jason Nappi, canned for spending too much time promoting local restaurants.
The popular meteorologist lost his TV gig, he said at the time, for social-media posts promoting the restaurant scene.
Nappi had now started his own weather app, Jason Nappi Weather, a personal milestone in his return to public meteorology.
“I want to say thank you,” Nappi posted earlier this week on Facebook. “The response to the Jason Nappi Weather App has honestly meant more than I can put into words. Seeing so many people download it, use it, and tell me it is helping them stay connected to Maine and New England weather has made every bit of the work worth it.”
Nappi calls his business “an independent weather platform built with the time, budget, and resources I had – and I poured everything I could into making it as good as possible at launch.
“I’m not a TV station with a graphics department, a full staff, or a $100,000 weather graphics system,” he added. “There are still things I want to improve. When time and money allow, I plan to upgrade more of the graphics, website content, app features, and overall experience.”
Nappi at one point had those expensive broadcast luxuries at his fingertips – until he was called out for excessively promoting restaurants he liked.
He was let go two years ago by News Center (WCSH and WLBZ) after he’d made posts about local food businesses on Facebook.
Nappi told the Bangor Daily News in 2024 that food has always been his first love, thus his habit of constantly posting about, and tagging, local eateries.
But he said the TV station’s bosses decided it was a conflict of interest and he was shown the door.
Nappi and his family briefly ran a Kennebunk restaurant, from 2007-2009, while he was working as a part-time meteorologist for WMTW.
The difficulty of running a restaurant taught him to appreciate those who succeed at it, he said after he lost his TV job paying too much attention to food.
Why would anyone take the advice of a weatherman on restaurants when he can’t even get the weather forecast right?
There has to be more to this story.