Less than 24 hours after a video of KWWL-TV sports reporter Mark Woodley doing a live remote in the middle of a blizzard for the channel’s morning show went viral, the big cable networks were out chasing their own viral video moments amid record low temperatures.
CNN sent correspondent Lucy Kafanov out into the streets of Denver yesterday, where it was -11 and according to Kafanov felt like -20, for some performative reporting. The network went back to Kafanov repeatedly over the course of the morning so she could throw a cup of boiling water in the air to demonstrate to viewers just how cold it was. Of course the first time, at 10:13 a.m., it didn’t work. An hour later, the water did, in fact, turn to ice in midair. The third time, just after noon, it only sort of worked. She had a backup, though.
Over in the snow by the side of the street was a glass of wine that Kafanov left there for several hours. It was indeed frozen solid, a good temperature indicator since, given its alcohol content, wine freezes at about 22 degrees, not 32 degrees, like water.
Over at the Weather Channel, they had correspondent Dave Malkoff doing the same, but for slightly more esoteric reasons.
“Let me show you [how cold it is] with this hot water,” Malkoff told viewers from Louisville, KY, “not just to show you how it becomes the frost, because everyone does that. I just want to show you how how it swirls around,” said Malkoff tracing a circle in the air with his finger, “you see how the [unintelligible] kind of swirls around as it went away from me? That is the wind that’s going on right now.”
Probably the most viral clip of the day came courtesy of Weather Channel veteran Mike Seidel. Seidel had been out all morning standing in winds of up to 50 mph to demonstrate just how bad visibility was is Holland, MI. Later in the day, while talking to a woman who was trying to get her car unstuck, Seidel was speaking to her at the car’s open door when he suddenly screamed, “Ow! Ow! Ow!!! Youall closed the door on my hand.” before throwing the door wide open.
“I’m ok,” he said quickly.
The woman then responded unintelligibly and Seidel followed with, “You said you’re an idiot. Well, you said it.” He then threw to break.