While most children ask Santa for the season’s hot-ticket toys, Chris Reece only wanted one thing: snow. “My parents will tell you that since I was a little kid, I’d ask for snow on Christmas every year, and I never got it,” he says.
Originally from Houston, Texas, Reece saw snow for the first time on a family trip to Kentucky as a young boy. “That’s one of my core memories, that day in the snow,” he says. In that moment, the seed planted, and Reece spent his childhood longing to move to a colder climate where he could experience snowfall all season long.
While it would be several years until Reece came to the Midwest, his fascination with snow remained steadfast. He studied meteorology at Western Kentucky University and conducted research on winter storm forecasting before accepting a post-grad position in Madison, Wisconsin. But Minnesota was always on Reece’s radar. “I remember Madison magazine asked me, ‘If you could take a one-gas-tank trip anywhere, where would you go?’” he recalls. “I said Minneapolis, because it’s where I’ve wanted to go since I was a little kid.”
In 2022, Reece took a meteorologist position with KSTP’s 5 Eyewitness News and moved to Apple Valley with his wife, Abigail. He quickly became an on-air favorite, his passion and enthusiasm resonating with local audiences. “You can feel his energy through the screen,” says Kate Bendell, promotions and partnership manager for KSTP. When Reece attends events like the Minnesota State Fair, viewers flock to say hello or give him a hug.
And his love for winter? It’s stronger than ever, from taking snowy selfies and broadcasting in blizzard conditions to making snow angels live on-air. Encouraging other Minnesotans to find the joy in winter, he does it all with a big smile—an ode to his childhood self, dreaming of the day he would see a white Christmas.
We caught up with Reece in October, just after he was promoted to Weekday Evening Meteorologist and won his third Regional Emmy Award.
When and how did you become interested in meteorology?
I was 6 years old, living in Houston, and Tropical Storm Allison made landfall. I wanted to go outside and play in it, and my mother, for obvious reasons, said no. But, she made the unfortunate mistake of turning on the news, and I got to see them out covering the storm. So, I said, ‘Why do they get to go in the rain and not me?’ And my mom said, ‘Well that’s because that’s their job.’ And I was like, well, it will be mine one day.
You had a college professor who said, ‘People who look like you will never be smart enough to do the math involved in meteorology.’ What kept you motivated to keep pursuing your dreams in the face of such negativity?
I’m a big person of faith, and for me, unless God says no, the answer is yes. Unless God shuts that door, it’s gonna be open, and I’m gonna walk through it. I think back on that all the time, and I feel like that professor was trying to be blunt but nice, and he came off wrong. I think he was trying to dance around something that ended up sounding way worse than he wanted it to.
That same professor has thanked me, because I ended up on the air maybe two years later, and there was a tornado outbreak in that town. He said, ‘I have to apologize, and I have to thank you because I was terrified as those storms rolled through, but you were the person that got me through them. I was wrong about you.’
Congrats on winning your third Emmy Award. What does that accomplishment mean to you?
I am still in so much shock over it. One of my friends texted me this morning, and he said, ‘Congratulations on winning another Emmy, does it feel old winning all these awards yet?’ And I said no, because so many people when I was younger said, ‘You’re not gonna be able to pull this off.’ To pull it off and win awards doing it… I’m just getting started.
Winter can be a touchy subject for Minnesotans—some love it, some hate it, but we all live with it. What is it about winter and snow that’s so appealing to you?
I think there are a few different reasons. Some are surface level, some are deeper and more spiritual. I hate being hot, and I laugh because Minnesotans seem to hate being cold. I’ve come to realize, whatever you grew up with, you want what you don’t have. For me, where it was warm for 11 and a half months of the year, other than our two weeks of cold, I just wanted it to cool down and not be so humid. I never got snow, so snow is still magical. It’s something that I’m still not used to. At this point, I still would say I’ve lived most of my life without snow, so it’s one of those things where I’m like, ‘This is still really cool.’
I don’t mind shoveling, because it’s a good way to workout with something I enjoy. It does not feel like a workout, but it is a good workout. A lot of folks are like, ‘Oh you’re gonna hate shoveling.’ But I’m like, ‘Let me tell you, it’s actually a lot of fun.’
On a deeper level, snow makes me think of the story of Christianity a little bit. I think of being made new and washed clean, completely white as snow. Everything’s forgiven, everything’s gone. So every time it snows, I feel like it’s a reminder [of that].
Does your faith come up often when thinking about the weather?
I think about it probably all the time. Me and my best friend, we did a devotion together about morning dew. He found it and sent it to me, and I was like, ‘Oh this is really cool.’ So now every morning when there’s dew on the ground, it’s a totally different perspective for me. When it’s windy, it’s often a kind of spiritual experience for me.
But there’s a difference between being on the air and off the air. When I’m on the air, my focus is, we’ve got to inform folks of what’s coming. This is what’s gonna happen as you step outside the door, and we’ll have some fun with it, as well. When I’m off the air and out in the elements, it’s a total spiritual experience, and I’m just in the midst of it, taking it all in.
Minnesota is somewhere you’ve always dreamed of living. Is it everything you hoped it would be?
Yes, it is. I will admit, I was a little nervous because everyone was like, ‘The winters up there are so terrible and brutal.’ Then I got here, and we had the third-snowiest winter on record, and I was like, ‘That was it? Come on, we can do better.’ If that was the third-snowiest winter and everyone was talking about how bad it was, I think I can handle anything Minnesota throws.
Our state has received a lot of national attention this year. As someone who moved from out of state, what are your thoughts on how Minnesota is being perceived?
Minnesota, in my eyes, is a hidden gem. There’s a statement Prince made in an interview with Oprah, ‘[It’s so cold,] it keeps the bad people out.’ I am glad that it doesn’t get the hype that a lot of other places get, where it drives up their cost of living. I think this place is really special, and for those who are here, we know. I have friends who come to visit, and they’re like, ‘I see why you live here, because this is unlike anywhere else we’ve been.’ I’ve lived in a lot of states… and no place has ever held a candle to the quality of life I have in Minnesota.
I think what stands out to me is happiness. Not only am I happy, but surprisingly, I feel like Minnesotans are kind of happy people. On top of that… I like water, and there’s a lake on every corner. Growing up, I had to fight to find a neighborhood with a lake. Here, just go to the next [neighborhood] and it’s gonna have one.
For anyone struggling to get through this season, what’s your advice for viewing winter in a more positive light?
Winter can be long, but a metaphor that I often say in my head is, ‘Though the winter is long, even richer the harvest it brings.’
Mother nature set the scene for our arrival at the Minnesota Ice Festival last Friday, where a steady flurry of snow blanketed the winterized expanse of TCO Stadium. It was the perfect weather conditions to wander through the intricate twists and turns of what would soon be announced as the world’s largest ice maze. 
