Fox Weather’s Mike Seidel on Chasing Storms, Unexpected Career Change & Jim Cantore Friendship

Life doesn’t always go by what is forecasted for you. Nobody knows that more than Mike Seidel, the longtime meteorologist who was let go by The Weather Channel after 32 years in 2024. From that moment, much like a hurricane, his career took a turn. It didn’t take long before Seidel began a new chapter at Fox Weather. 

The storm specialist brought his vast experience to covering everything from devastating tornadoes and hurricanes to snowstorms, logging more than 26,000 live shots over his near four decades. Fox Weather recently celebrated its own milestone of five years on the air. Here Seidel reflects on past experiences and evolution of weather coverage.

You spent more than 32 years at The Weather Channel before your exit in 2024. Was there a point in time where you were contemplating if you should continue your career before the Fox Weather opportunity came up?

Mike Seidel: I was not expecting my career to end at The Weather Channel. They had several layoffs in 2024. I had a great run of 32-plus years. I didn’t really want to give up and retire at 68. Even though I was past 65, I’ve been working full-time. As Dick Van Dyke says, keep moving. I started looking into my options. and consider the fact that maybe I don’t want to work full-time. Going out on the road does wear you out with the travel and then the long hours. Usually the weather’s not that great, but that’s what we’re there for. And the worse the weather, the better the live shot visually. I’m just kind of a supporting actor, showing people what’s going on around and behind me. I reached out to the other networks. I reached out to NBC because we had been owned by The Weather Channel for 10 years. I reached out to Fox. I reached out to the other broadcast networks, ABC and CBS to see if they had any need for some freelance work or full-time for that matter. I was really moving at that point towards freelancing, not working full-time. I had a Zoom call with the gang there at Fox Weather, and as they say, the rest is history.

What were your first impressions working at Fox Weather?

I remember when they came on the air five years ago when I was at The Weather Channel. As Johnny Carson used to say, I love competition. It makes you look better. At the same time, you can’t rest on your laurels. It came on the air and then I ended up working there. It was kind of full circle. When it came on the air, if somebody said you’ll be working at Fox Weather in a few years, I would have laughed at him because  I did The Weather Channel almost half my lifetime. Fox Weather was a great fit.  I’m doing what I love doing, which is field coverage. And I’m doing it in a freelance, part-time basis…Everyone couldn’t be nicer. I hate to say it’s perfect, but it is about as close to perfect as I could ask for at my point in my life and my career. 

What does your family think about you being in the thick of things for these storms over the years?

They know I’m careful. It’s safety first. Number two is keeping a camera dry so we can broadcast. I just don’t take risks. Some of these crazy storm chaser types go in where I wouldn’t go for a hurricane. For snowstorms, usually you just find a nice place with a hotel, with a restaurant, and try to stay warm and cover the snowstorm. But keeping us all safe is a priority of mine. It’s always just me and a photographer, so it’s just a two-person crew. I go out and try to find a good location, like I did with the Nor’easter back in September. Then the Nor’easter we had just a couple weeks ago. I was on the Outer Banks. I was not really worried about safety. I was worried about getting stuck on Hatteras Island. So, we went down and got out of there before they shut down Highway 12. I did the Nor’easter route on the eastern end of Long Island. It was not a safety issue per se. It was just finding a good location with a good background where we could keep the camera dry. 

You were the first U.S. meteorologist from The Weather Channel to broadcast from Cuba when you were covering Tropical Storm Isaac in 2012. What do you remember about that experience?

That was incredible. I’d only been to Cuba once, and that was in 1999. The Weather Channel was owned by NBCUniversal. God bless Mary Murray, who was the Havana Bureau Chief for NBC. I get down there, and I get checked in. I walk over to the El Malecón there in Central Havana. She has got a freaking satellite vehicle. This woman was so connected. We had a little satellite truck. It was crazy. That was just an incredible trip. We went from there over to Varadero which is a resort. Few Americans were there. It was mostly Canadian tourists. I just really loved my time there. It’s a beautiful country. Thanks to Mary, we were able to get a broadcast out. I’ve been there twice for coverage. It was a wonderful experience…Looking back, if someone said I’d still be doing live shots in 2026, 30 years later…you don’t know what the future holds. I just keep adding them up. I think 26,483 was where I stand right now. 

That’s amazing. When I think of The Weather Channel and another tenured name there, it’s Jim Cantore. How would you describe your friendship and working relationship all these years, being in the same line of work for so long? 

I’ve known him for almost 35 years. We text back and forth, talk all the time…It’s just a bond that you share. When I went to Hawaii for Hurricane Lala in August, I ended up sitting next to him for the nine-hour flight. We caught up. It’s rare to have that time, and sometimes we end up at the same locations, which I think only happened maybe once at The Weather Channel because they always had us in different spots. Nothing has really changed in the relationship…We do often speak about our love of landscaping and plants. 

You’ve been part of some viral moments during the outset of social media. You’ve also seen technology advance and AI come into the mix. That has come with its own challenges as misinformation can spread easier. What do you see for the future of weather forecasting?

There are certainly challenges. Looking back 30 years ago, if I wanted to look at a forecast weather model, like the European or the American GFS, I had to drive to The Weather Channel, or I had to go to a university. There was no distribution at that point. The internet was just coming around for that. Fast forward to these days, and every model is available to everyone on the internet. We all know that forecasting is not an exact science. Meteorology is the science. Now we have people see the American GFS and two weeks out they could see what we in the industry call bogus canes. Now that all the weather models are available to everybody, and everybody can see everything, there is a lot of misinformation that goes out. We work very hard at Fox Weather to tamp down the rumor mill online because of some of these folks out there post forecast maps 10 days to 16 days out, which is ridiculous. 

Then with social media, somebody posts it, and it gets retweeted. Some of these maps so far out show a massive storm that gets so many clicks, it’s frustrating. Even my friends will say, “Hey Mike, I hear we’re going to get a big snowstorm in 10 days, you know?” I’m like, “No, I don’t think so. Not at this point..”…There is so much information out there, as you know, not only weather, but news. It’s just frustrating.  At the same time,  I wanted to point out that in the month of October we had more social media views than The Weather Channel or AccuWeather. Considering that five years ago, we just came on the air, and now we’re topping the two other networks, especially The Weather Channel in social media views on the platforms. When we go out and do storm coverage, we throw everything out there. It is just amazing how many people we have out there to cover these big weather events. We have more boots on the ground than anybody else, and it’s been that way for a while. And what shows through the relationship between Fox Weather and the viewer is this commitment. Fox Weather aims to get as much live coverage on the air at as many locations as possible and make it accessible for everyone.