Meteorologist Marc Lamarre has been relieved of his duties at WSLS (Channel 10), Shane Moreland, the station's news director, said Monday.

"He's no longer an employee of WSLS," Moreland said. He declined to give further details or to say whether Lamarre had completed the terms of his contract.

Lamarre, 36, last appeared on the air last week. In recent months, however, rumors have swirled about his standing at WSLS.

WSLS has kept a job posting for a full-time weekend meteorologist on its parent company's Web site since mid-December. The station, which is owned by Media General, is seeking a candidate with solid on-air presence and a degree in meteorology.

Late last year, Moreland denied that the station planned to get rid of Lamarre. Moreland said it was his practice to have a pool of talent waiting in the wings if needed.

"Weather is a big deal to us," Moreland said. "We'll be looking for that replacement."

Lamarre's biography was pulled from the station's Web site Monday without comment. Attempts to reach him by phone and e-mail in recent days have been unsuccessful. A native of Brunswick, Maine, Lamarre joined WSLS on the weekend shift in 1998, having earlier worked as chief meteorologist in Clarksburg, W.Va. He quickly distinguished himself at WSLS with his community involvement and weather reports, particularly ones involving hurricanes Bonnie and Floyd.

In 1999, he was taken off weekends and put on the weekday evening news broadcasts. Later he returned to weekend weather duties for WSLS and its news partner WJPR/WFXR (Channel 21/27).

In December and part of January, viewers of WSLS sometimes found new, but temporary, faces delivering the weather and little if any explanation of Lamarre's absence. Another member of the station's three-man weather team, meteorologist and Franklin County native Jamey Singleton, also was off the air for a couple of weeks late last year. Singleton has since returned to the air.