There’s something about Dagmar Midcap

Talk about a fast-rising front: After less than a year at WGCL-TV, weather forecaster Dagmar Midcap has already been rewarded her with her own promotional billboards on I-75 and I-85.

The eye catches her first name "Dagmar," dominant, in white against blue. "Tomorrow's Forecast In The First Five Minutes" reads the slogan, in much smaller print. Then there's that smiling Dagmar visage to the right, with just a hint of cleavage.

"I was on my bike when I first saw it," Midcap said. "I nearly spun off the road."

Last week, then-news director Rick Erbach made no apologies for giving drivers a reminder of a breakout personality. (Erbach resigned from the station on Thursday for unknown reasons.)

"Why hide her?" he said then. "She's a star!"

Midcap, who can be seen weekdays at 4, 6 and 11 p.m., replaced Gene Norman as the prime weather forecaster in January. And yes, that's her real name.

An average 556,000 cars pass those billboards every day, according to 2006 Department of Transportation statistics. (This compares to a collective average of about 170,000 people who watched WGCL's late afternoon and evening broadcasts in May.)

It's too soon to say if her popularity is going to translate into better ratings for WGCL, which is usually third or fourth in most time slots.

Stations often promote their best known personalities, typically the evening anchors. At WSB-TV, that's Monica Pearson. At WXIA-TV, that's Brenda Wood. Even WGCL has given billboard space in the past to evening anchors Stephany Fisher and Bill Gaines.

But there's something about Dagmar. The auburn-haired Vancouver native possesses a soothing voice, a pretty face and a warm personality. Fans have posted videos of her weather reports on YouTube. And the blogosphere has gone ga ga. ("Yes, you babelicious weathergirl with the killer name, can you tell me: is it hot in here or is it just you?" one person wrote.)

Midcap recently visited Rock 100.5's Regular Guys morning show where she good-naturedly fended off the advances of the hosts.

"She's quite a catch if one were to marry her," said host Larry Wachs. Her appeal? "One: The tight sweaters. Two: Her flawless skin. Three: That hair. She could read the stock ticker and I'd watch her. Make her the main anchor! Let her read all the stories!"

Midcap, who has a boyfriend, shrugs off the male attention. "It doesn't faze me," she said. "I grew up with guys. I played ice hockey. I'm used to the locker room stuff."

She isn't a meteorologist and doesn't feign to be one. She started her TV career in Cleveland as host of a popular weekly current affairs show before moving back to Vancouver in 1999, where she did traffic and weather on morning TV shows. She also has dabbled in Hollywood, nabbing small roles (mostly as a news reporter) in the film "Catwoman" with Halle Barry and TV shows such as "Dark Angel," "Medium" and "Smallville."

"I'm not an actor," she said. "It was just fun to do."

Norman, Midcap's predecessor, left WGCL after eight years to be a meteorologist at a CBS affiliate in Houston. He had his own billboard, he said, in 2003 with the line "unseasonably accurate."

"She doesn't know much about weather," Norman said, "but she's very interested in cars and animals." And he has no objection to what his former employer is doing: "They're in a challenging position. They have to try different things."

Midcap hopes to find more venues for her passions.

So far, WGCL lets her do weekly news reports for the station's early-morning show "Better Mornings" on animals called "Critter Corner" and a weekly review of automobiles and motorcycles. (She doesn't even own a car. She gets around by test driving vehicles. And she also owns a parrot.)

"I'm totally a tomboy," Midcap said. "I've broken every bone in my body. Four concussions. Broken legs, knees, shins, playing hockey partly. Riding horses, falling out of trees. But I'm fine! I come from sturdy German stock!"

Doug Richards, a former WAGA-TV reporter who runs a production company and a popular blog about local TV news, said he mentioned Midcap once in his blog and got numerous Google hits. "I was little unnerved by it," he said.

WGCL, Richards added, has "tried every which way to get an audience. In this case, they're definitely not promoting her for her forecasting ability."

Mike Beavers, a 53-year-old Kennesaw engineer, doesn't care. "She makes weather fun to watch," he said. "She comes across as the perfect woman — a perfect 10 who can hang with the guys. So what if she's not a meteorologist? She gets her information from the same places as [rival weather forecasters] Glenn Burns and Ken Cook."