Maryland’s weather has always been wild. There are the harsh winters, the blazing hot summers and all the seasons in between that interchange the hot and the cold with maddening indecisiveness. The TV morning announcements crew here is tasked with harnessing, and predicting the beast, and the job is not for the weak willed.
The group has rotated different weathermen to man the segment throughout the year. In the first semester, junior Dennis Child was the main weatherman. The ‘Weather Dennis’ era was a fan favorite, as Child used his sly humor and straight-faced nonchalant attitude to convey the weather in an entertaining way. His scripts for the weather included random, absurd jokes that left viewers not knowing what to expect next. “I loved Weather Dennis. When he was on, that would be the highlight of the show,” senior Daniel Philipose said.
More recently, the keys to the weather kingdom have been handed to senior Nick Christovich. Christovich, like Child, is beloved by the community for his on-camera antics. His style differs from Child’s in that it is more exuberant and lively during his broadcast, as he uses a raised rate of speech and loudened tone to keep viewers engaged. His content includes puns and alliteration that make his speech a different style to what is offered by the regular broadcast anchors. “Nick is so funny. He keeps the announcements engaging, and though sometimes I’ll feel like taking a nap during the announcements since they’re so early, it’s almost impossible to do that while Nick is on screen,” senior Justin Slud said.
The last member of the weather trio is senior Kristian Chitate. His style is more similar to Christovich’s than Child’s, but he takes the liveliness to a whole new level. His audience engagement includes borderline screaming at times, a broadcasting tactic that is all in good fun and injects life into the segment. “Kristian is so funny. With him the weather announcements are basically a comedy skit. I feel like he’s the kind of person I’d see on Last Comic Standing in a few years,” Slud said.
The rotation of who does the segment each day (segment days are Monday, Wednesday and Friday) is completely dependent on these three, as they have to write their own scripts and present it to announcements director Kenny Jacobs before getting on air. When none of them decide to write a script there is no weather segment and the broadcast goes on as normal, much to the chagrin of students.
While weather broadcasts on regular, established news shows are usually no laughing matter, the announcements crew here prioritizes humor in their segment and looks towards this part of the broadcast to add life to a show that is riddled with the often times bland daily news of events. “It’s a refreshing segment in that it strays from the normal standard news. It allows students to freely joke around and have fun with the weather, which makes for an energetic newscast,” morning announcements executive producer Stephen Hechler said.
Peter Hechler
