CNN weather team on location in St. Louis
St. Louis (KSDK) - The blizzard of 2011 is becoming much more than just a local weather story. The blizzard is attracting national attention. Setting up camp in downtown St. Louis, we found crews from The Weather Channel, MSNBC and CNN.
National weather reporters fly into the storms for a living, travelling around the country covering the nation's biggest weather events. You'll find them on location covering anything from hurricanes to flash floods and of course, snow storms.
They are what you call "weather hounds,' but what they don't like seeing is people getting hurt, and at least one national weather reporter believes what we have coming could turn into a dangerous situation.
Needless to say, both reporters, Mike Seidel from the Weather Channel and Reynolds Wolf from CNN, believe this is going to be a big storm.
Wolf's CNN team set up their base camp in an area across from the Millennium Hotel St. Louis, on the eastern edge of downtown. "This could be really big," said CNN's Reynolds Wolf. "I compare it back to the storm we had back in 2006, but I think people are a little bit better prepared this time than they then." Reynolds says that when confronted with a storm as huge as this blizzard is, well over 1000 miles long, hundreds of miles wide, it could affect possibly 100 million Americans.
"When you see the elements come together to create a tremendous winter situation like this, obviously it's going to garner some national attention," said Wolf.
Weather Channel reporter Mike Seidel agrees. We caught up with him and his team set up just west of the Old Courthouse. "I have one of the best jobs in meteorology. I get to travel around and cover storms, and this winter's been crazy."
Since Christmas, Seidel has traveled four times to Boston, covering the massive winter storms that blanketed the eastern seaboard. Since the New Year, he's been on the road 23 of 31 days. "It's been a crazy winter, and you just try to sleep when you can."
Seidel believes our area should see a pretty good sized storm. "Maybe one of the biggest of the season, if we see 10 inches or more. We saw some sleet this morning, we've got the wind, and we've got the blizzard warning. This is the real deal folks."
According the National Weather Service, it's at least been since the early 1990s, that they've had to issue a blizzard warning for our area.
KSDK