Rochester meteorologist defends texting wife on-air during live storm coverage

As storms raged through Minnesota late on July 28, Nick Jansen took 10 seconds from his late-night weather coverage to text his wife, waking her to get to the basement with their 5-month-old son.

One KTTC viewer thought it was unprofessional and wrote the station.

“That he has to call his wife to make sure she takes the baby to safety? Maybe some people think it’s noble or cute,” the viewer wrote in an email. “I don’t.”

Jansen felt compelled to respond publicly, and his response has drawn more than 300,000 reactions and over 20,000 online comments since, as viewers largely agreed with him. Even national news outlets the “Today” show, “Inside Edition” and People.com covered it.

“That’s not me being unprofessional,” Jansen wrote on Facebook, “it’s me being human. I am a husband and a father FIRST.”

It’s the latest example of bad manners gone viral as viewers sound off on what a TV personality wears, does or explains while they’re on the air.

“I’m not the first meteorologist to do that, and I’m sure I won’t be the last,” Jansen said Thursday.

Jansen spent nearly three hours covering particularly strong storms as they rolled through the state that evening, with winds approaching 70 mph in the Rochester area alone, according to the National Weather Service.

Around 11 p.m., anchors threw weather coverage back to Jansen, who was in the middle of texting his wife making sure she and their baby were sheltering in the basement.

Jansen said in an interview he never expected to go viral, that he’d rather spotlight the five-person meteorological team at KTTC.

“The whole mission statement that we have is that we care for everyone, and we care for all of our viewers and families,” he said.

Dealing with feedback is a prerequisite for being TV news meteorologists, or journalists in general.

If nothing else, the experience has given some southeast Minnesota viewers a new perspective on gauging the weather. One viewer commented on Facebook earlier this week that he figured Jansen texting his wife on-air was a new cue to take a storm seriously.