‘Your heart races a bit’: US weather man threatened with death for mentioning climate crisis

Chris Gloninger wove the reality of global heating into his forecasts in the conservative heartland of Iowa. Not everyone was receptive

It was a brave, if perhaps scientifically obvious, experiment - to convey messages about the unfolding climate crisis via the regular local TV weather forecasts seen by viewers in the conservative heartland of Iowa. It culminated in the meteorologist involved receiving death threats and exiting the state.

Chris Gloninger, who is 38, has been obsessed with the weather since he was a child, when Hurricane Bob crunched into his New York state home town, parlaying this into an itinerant career as a TV meteorologist in cities such as Milwaukee and Boston, where he pioneered at NBC 10 what he thinks was the US's first regular broadcast segment on climate change, in 2010.