Jeff Probst & Phil Keoghan Reveal How Climate Change Impacts ‘Survivor’ & ‘Amazing Race’

Jeff Probst and Phil Keoghan have watched as countless reality TV shows have been added to the genre since its inception, but few reality shows are as directly impacted by the weather as Survivor and The Amazing Race.

Survivor used to travel more but has filmed exclusively in Fiji for years now, and The Amazing Race circumnavigates the globe in 21 days each season. No matter the location, their casts and crew are beholden to the whims of Mother Nature. The hosts can attest that the weather has notably worsened over the last 25 years.

TV Insider spoke with Probst, Keoghan, and Big Brother host Julie Chen Moonves for a special interview about the state of reality TV after its first quarter century. The Survivor and Amazing Race hosts said that they’ve experienced intensifying weather firsthand during filming of their shows in recent years.

“Weather has been a concern for us all the way back to our first season because it isn’t just happening in the background,” Probst told TV Insider. “It directly affects the players and our ability to produce the show.”

“I can attest that the storms have become more intense and more frequent over the years,” Probst added. “It’s a very real thing. Our marine and safety teams constantly monitor the weather, and we have very clear protocols for when conditions cross the line from uncomfortable to unsafe. Fortunately, we are very well versed in how to deal with storms, even when we’re on an island with absolutely zero protection.”

Survivor 49 was bogged down by unrelenting heat and humidity that impacted the cast and Probst’s cognition up until the merge. Once the heat broke, everyone could think more clearly. In Season 42, Probst stopped a water challenge halfway through for the first time ever because the current was so strong, it was too dangerous to play in. In our interview with Probst for Survivor 51 (premiering September 23), he said the cast does “get some tough weather, and there’s a couple of nights where — and we see it in the season — they come out of it really wrecked.”

The Amazing Race always has to account for weather impacting travel schedules for its contestants, but Keoghan told us that he has experienced “way less predictable and just crazy storms” during filming in recent years.

“We’re getting into now people who are denying that there is some change in the weather, but you only have to just look,” Keoghan said. “The other day I saw a really quick graphic, which showed temperatures around the world over a period of time and a tight circle of extremes. The circle has been getting bigger and bigger and bigger. However people want to quantify that and say, ‘Well, that’s just nature. It’s just what it is,’ or whether they think it’s climate change as a result of what we are doing to the climate, regardless, yes. The weather changes around the world are real.”

“I’ve experienced it firsthand, way less predictable and just crazy storms,” he continued. “And I mean, look, I come originally from New Zealand; we’ve seen it there. Yes, climates have changed. Places have dried up.”

“The other day I just saw a thing in Indonesia where an entire village was exposed because of a drought, and we are seeing more fires because of the climate change,” Keoghan added. “I don’t want to get political because people will be like, ‘That’s crazy.’ But yeah, I’ve seen it.”

Weather monitoring are constants during production of The Amazing Race. “We have to watch the weather every day. Are the flights going to take off? Are they delayed? And it just has a domino effect,” Keoghan said.

“Before we leave, some fans are like, ‘Do you just choose randomly when you eliminate someone?’ No,” Keoghan went on. “Every single leg, because the number of hotel rooms changes, you can’t be like, ‘Oh, let’s just keep that team, and we won’t eliminate them.’ Yeah, well, what about an extra hotel room and the flights that go along with all of that? Everything is scheduled.”

Survivor stays where it is each season, so it’s only confronting weather systems in one region. But The Amazing Race has to account for weather in a litany of locations all season, every season, which makes for constant organizing and adjustments. “If something happens at the front of June that has a domino effect, it just goes all the way down the production,” Keoghan shared.

Twenty-one Survivor players and 26 Amazing Race contestants will brave the elements when the CBS reality competitions return on September 23 and September 30, respectively.

Survivor, Season 51 Premiere, Wednesday, September 23, 8/7c, CBS

The Amazing Race, Season 39 Premiere, Wednesday, September 30, 9:30/8:30c, CBS