John Bolaris

THE GUY tossed restlessly in his bed, night after night, for the better part of a year. He couldn't sleep. He had nightmares whenever he did - bizarre, Kafkaesque snippets of dialogue involving the Russian mob, a pair of mysterious, dark-haired women, a goofy-looking painting and an incomprehensible credit-card bill. The shadowy characters and confusing plots from the bad dreams haunted John Bolaris in real life, too. Yeah, that John Bolaris. Few people know that the affable local weatherman's life was turned upside down during a visit to Miami Beach last spring that started out pleasantly and ended with his getting drugged - twice - while his credit card was used by Eastern European scam artists to rack up $43,000 worth of expenses in just two days, while he staggered around in a stupor.

THE FORECAST looks like unemployment for John Bolaris. The Fox 29 meteorologist, who two years ago survived an encounter with a Russian and Eastern European organized-crime group, could not survive the storm winds of office politics. Bolaris had been suspended since Dec. 22, but yesterday a Fox spokeswoman confirmed: "We mutually agreed that it was time to part ways. " She declined to comment further on the parting. As we reported on PhillyGossip.com on Dec. 23, Bolaris was suspended indefinitely just days after Playboy magazine published an article about his being drugged and scammed by two European hotties in Miami Beach in March 2010, a story first reported by the Daily News last May . In Playboy, Bolaris was quoted as saying that he had gone with the women because "I'm a guy. There was the thought I might get laid," and he discussed his reputation as a ladies' man. He also shared nude photos of women on his cellphone with writer Pat Jordan.

Fox29 has suspended weatherguy John Bolaris , a station representative said Friday. The suspension Thursday followed a recent article in Playboy about Bolaris' misadventures in Florida in 2010 with a pair of young women who drugged him and made merry with his American Express card, to the tune of $43,000. The Playboy article wasn't the only reason Bolaris was suspended, a source said. It was merely the catalyst, capping a series of unpleasant newsroom incidents over the last year that included a dustup over Bolaris' desire to interview his bud Lenny Dykstra for the station.

KATHY Orr, Doug Kammmerer, Hurricane Schwartz, Carol Erickson, Tom Lamaine, Sue Serio, Cecily Tynan, Dave Roberts, Henry from Channel 6, Karen Rogers, John Bolaris and about 35 others from the local channels can't predict their way out of a wet paper bag. Hey, I'll tell ya what the weather is in 10 minutes with the Mega-Doppler 1 Million. All these folks do is scare the heck out of people and, in Bolaris' case, got him, I think, kicked out of Philly for the "Storm of the Century" that wasn't.

LOCK UP your wives and girlfriends. It looks like former NBC-10 weatherhunk John Bolaris is angling to return to the Philadelphia airwaves in the fall. Bolaris, who's been with New York's WCBS since 2002, did not re-sign with the station, sources tell us. His contract is up toward the end of the year. The weather anchor was recently moved to weekends with newly hired meteorologist Lonnie Quinn replacing him on weeknights, as FTVLive.com reported. We're told Bolaris has put out feelers to CBS 3, NBC-10 and Fox 29, and there are casual, and somewhat secret, discussions going on. Friends of Bolaris, a Long Island native, say he misses Philadelphia and is very much hoping to return.

City Councilman Rick Mariano says the public has lost faith in weather forecasts blared over the TV airwaves. And hoping to jump-start his own faith-in-government movement, Mariano yesterday urged the Street administration to start putting "unfiltered weather" forecasts on the city's cable access station whenever a major weather event is threatening the region. "We don't trust what the channels are telling us," Mariano said after City Council approved his resolution. "They get involved in rating wars and they are forecasting severe storms that aren't coming.

SOME highlights - and low lights - of John Bolaris' career: 1990: Bolaris, young and handsome, begins working as a weatherman at Channel 10, at the time a CBS affiliate, and almost immediately sparks an endless series of stories about his ever-evolving love life. March 2001: Four words: Storm of the Century. Bolaris and NBC10 hyped a once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm that never arrived, earning him years of infamy. November 2002: Bolaris leaves NBC10 for New York's WCBS-TV. May 2003: Bolaris reportedly is thrown over a table at the Denim Lounge, in Center City, by another patron after a confrontation over the weatherman's then-girlfriend, Tiffany McElroy.

THE STORM of the century could be brewing between Fox 29 meteorologist John Bolaris and his Twitter imposter. Bolaris signed up for Twitter Thursday @john_bolaris. Why not @johnbolaris? Because since January 2010 that account has been used to mock him by a prankster who will be hearing from attorney Chuck Peruto Jr. today, according to Bolaris. The weatherman tells us that he learned only Thursday of the fake account, which posts regularly about Bolaris womanizing and pushing 60, (He's 53)

Lights shone brightly, the microphone was checked and rechecked, the television screen was adjusted and the camera began to roll. Everyone on the set appeared ready for the noon weather segment on Channel 10. But this was no ordinary broadcast with station meteorologist John Bolaris giving the highs and lows - not with two rats, Jessica and Sandy, and an 18- inch garter snake named Squirmy as part of the set. In fact, Bolaris was not giving...

Two days before Philadelphia was bodyslammed by the two-day snowstorm, the news departments of the various Philadelphia TV and radio stations were already prepared with the nickname. The Blizzard of '96. Tumbling off the tongue like such sturdy historical phrases as the Black Death or the Great Depression, the Blizzard of '96 became the unofficial tag of the winter tempest that was reported with all the immediacy of the bombing of Baghdad. However, interviewing a video- store clerk in Norristown doesn't quite measure up to dodging Scuds in Tel Aviv.

SOME highlights - and low lights - of John Bolaris' career: 1990: Bolaris, young and handsome, begins working as a weatherman at Channel 10, at the time a CBS affiliate, and almost immediately sparks an endless series of stories about his ever-evolving love life. March 2001: Four words: Storm of the Century. Bolaris and NBC10 hyped a once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm that never arrived, earning him years of infamy. November 2002: Bolaris leaves NBC10 for New York's WCBS-TV. May 2003: Bolaris reportedly is thrown over a table at the Denim Lounge, in Center City, by another patron after a confrontation over the weatherman's then-girlfriend, Tiffany McElroy.

You don't need Doppler radar to tell which way the wind is blowing in Philadelphia. On Tuesday, Fox29 announced that it was parting ways, effective immediately, with weatherman-about-town John Bolaris . The relationship between the storm-seer and the station, which had grown frosty during his four-year tenure, hit the freezing point just before Christmas when a Playboy article appeared, recounting his adventures in Florida in 2010 with...

THE FORECAST looks like unemployment for John Bolaris. The Fox 29 meteorologist, who two years ago survived an encounter with a Russian and Eastern European organized-crime group, could not survive the storm winds of office politics. Bolaris had been suspended since Dec. 22, but yesterday a Fox spokeswoman confirmed: "We mutually agreed that it was time to part ways. " She declined to comment further on the parting. As we reported on PhillyGossip.com on Dec. 23, Bolaris was suspended indefinitely just days after Playboy magazine published an article about his being drugged and scammed by two European hotties in Miami Beach in March 2010, a story first reported by the Daily News last May . In Playboy, Bolaris was quoted as saying that he had gone with the women because "I'm a guy. There was the thought I might get laid," and he discussed his reputation as a ladies' man. He also shared nude photos of women on his cellphone with writer Pat Jordan.

Fox29 has suspended weatherguy John Bolaris , a station representative said Friday. The suspension Thursday followed a recent article in Playboy about Bolaris' misadventures in Florida in 2010 with a pair of young women who drugged him and made merry with his American Express card, to the tune of $43,000. The Playboy article wasn't the only reason Bolaris was suspended, a source said. It was merely the catalyst, capping a series of unpleasant newsroom incidents over the last year that included a dustup over Bolaris' desire to interview his bud Lenny Dykstra for the station.

THE STORM of the century could be brewing between Fox 29 meteorologist John Bolaris and his Twitter imposter. Bolaris signed up for Twitter Thursday @john_bolaris. Why not @johnbolaris? Because since January 2010 that account has been used to mock him by a prankster who will be hearing from attorney Chuck Peruto Jr. today, according to Bolaris. The weatherman tells us that he learned only Thursday of the fake account, which posts regularly about Bolaris womanizing and pushing 60, (He's 53)

THE GUY tossed restlessly in his bed, night after night, for the better part of a year. He couldn't sleep. He had nightmares whenever he did - bizarre, Kafkaesque snippets of dialogue involving the Russian mob, a pair of mysterious, dark-haired women, a goofy-looking painting and an incomprehensible credit-card bill. The shadowy characters and confusing plots from the bad dreams haunted John Bolaris in real life, too. Yeah, that John Bolaris. Few people know that the affable local weatherman's life was turned upside down during a visit to Miami Beach last spring that started out pleasantly and ended with his getting drugged - twice - while his credit card was used by Eastern European scam artists to rack up $43,000 worth of expenses in just two days, while he staggered around in a stupor.

Heading into winter, the region's highway departments might have enough salt and brine on hand to liquefy the Hubbard Glacier in Alaska. And based on the latest winter outlooks, they might need it. Those who issue long-range forecasts readily acknowledge that they skate on thin scientific ice, that nailing tomorrow's weather is hard enough. But the consensus is that this weekend's wintry turn is a trailer for what's to come, that the brisk storm traffic will continue. "This is the first of what's going to be a series," said Henry Margusity, a meteorologist with Accu-Weather Inc. "This weather pattern is just amazing.

Meteorologist John Bolaris was a media lightning rod when he worked at Channel 10: scattered brawls, flurries of name-calling, nights of deep canoodling. He's also the guy who, in 2001, hyped the big snowstorm that missed Philadelphia. So why - more than a year after he returned to Philadelphia after five years in New York - has there not been a dusting, or even a dustup? Friends say that the 51-year-old Bolaris, now chief meteorologist at Fox29, has grown up. The "new" John, they say, can be attributed to his daughter, Reina Sofia, a long-haired sprite who just turned 5. Bolaris shares custody with his former girlfriend Tiffany McElroy, a morning anchor in New York who briefly was a coworker at Channel 10. "Having a kid has slowed him down, in a good way," said Matt Cord, the WMMR radio personality and 76ers announcer.

KATHY Orr, Doug Kammmerer, Hurricane Schwartz, Carol Erickson, Tom Lamaine, Sue Serio, Cecily Tynan, Dave Roberts, Henry from Channel 6, Karen Rogers, John Bolaris and about 35 others from the local channels can't predict their way out of a wet paper bag. Hey, I'll tell ya what the weather is in 10 minutes with the Mega-Doppler 1 Million. All these folks do is scare the heck out of people and, in Bolaris' case, got him, I think, kicked out of Philly for the "Storm of the Century" that wasn't.

LOCK UP your wives and girlfriends. It looks like former NBC-10 weatherhunk John Bolaris is angling to return to the Philadelphia airwaves in the fall. Bolaris, who's been with New York's WCBS since 2002, did not re-sign with the station, sources tell us. His contract is up toward the end of the year. The weather anchor was recently moved to weekends with newly hired meteorologist Lonnie Quinn replacing him on weeknights, as FTVLive.com reported. We're told Bolaris has put out feelers to CBS 3, NBC-10 and Fox 29, and there are casual, and somewhat secret, discussions going on. Friends of Bolaris, a Long Island native, say he misses Philadelphia and is very much hoping to return.