Mark Woodley, a KWWL sports reporter, goes viral for his blizzard coverage
One sports reporter went viral because he covered extreme weather, a job that he didn’t want to do.
Mark Woodley, a reporter for KWWL, Waterloo (Iowa), was forced to track a local blizzard on Thursday morning despite his official position as a sports journalist. Since most of the cancelled sports games are due to bad weather, his station was short-staffed. He asked him to help with the morning program. The salty journalist didn’t hold back about how he was really feeling about taking over the weather watch.
Sports is not my usual sport, so I asked the sports guy to come in five hours earlier than he normally would to get up to stand out in cold wind and snow to warn others. “I didn’t know there was a 3:00 in the morning, until today.”Mark Woodley, KWWL Sports reporter
On another hit, he confesses that he’s used to working the evening show, which are only 30 minutes long and requires him to be inside.
“This is a long show, so tune into me progressively getting crankier and crankier,” he says.
Woodley also quips that he longs to be inside the Stormchaser 7 vehicle doing road conditions, because “that thing’s heated and the outdoors currently is not heated.”
He eventually signs off on his blizzard report by saying “live from Waterloo, for the last time this morning, thankfully.”
The video compilation of Woodley’s hot cold takes currently has over five million views.
He said, “Nobody told” me what I was doing. TODAY His viral blizzard watch. “Now I thought maybe I’d be in studio or out in the car or something — not outside when temperature is pushing in minus 40 with the wind chill!”
One company has even made t-shirts that say “The outdoors is not heated”, inspired by Woodley’s remark. A portion of the sales will be donated to charity.
Woodley has not yet said if he will give the snow another shot in the future.