SALISBURY -- Mike Seidel has tackled blizzards, tornadoes and Hurricane Katrina.

"I think it's one of the best jobs around," the 50-year old meteorologist said Friday at Salisbury University. "Most of my co-workers don't want to be doing what I'm doing."

For the past 15 years, Seidel has literally worked around the clock for The Weather Channel, bouncing from state to state, reporting live coverage from sunny days to weather-related emergency evacuation.

Seidel, an SU and Wicomico High School alumnus, discussed his whirlwind career before an audience in The Commons at the Pennsylvania Geographical Society conference. A Salisbury native, Seidel's parents endowed the Samuel and Marilyn Seidel School of Education and Professional Development at SU.

The meteorologist joked with the crowd about his various assignments and even showed bloopers of the desperate attempts spectators make for their 15 minutes of fame.

"We don't just go anywhere on a whim; we look for the best spot," Seidel said adding that the satellite truck costs $2,500 a day and the photographer $1,000 a day.

Seidel said he's on the road 150 days out of the year, not counting on-call assignments. He once covered 138 live shots of the December 2001 blizzard in Buffalo, N.Y., in a four-day period.

Seidel said he's always wanted to be a meteorologist since he began measuring snow at 6 years old. His first experience in front of the camera was when he worked at WMDT-TV in 1980. He was also the chief meteorologist for WBOC-TV. He also worked in radio for several years in Maryland and Delaware.

"You can have a Ph.D. in meteorology -- it doesn't mean you're good on TV," he said. "You have to have good communication skills."

Seidel shared the same philosophy, along with WBOC meteorologists Brian Keane and Bob Burnett-Kurie, before geography students in a panel discussion Friday.

The competitive profession comes with a risk. Burnett-Kurie said that even if the public and newsroom praises and loves a TV personality, a buy-out could mean that person's job.

Keane recommended the students obtain a mix of camera time and math skills to be a well-rounded, experienced meteorologist.

One student asked the panelists how they keep their live coverage of repetitive weather reports fresh, hour after hour. Although it can be tedious, Keane said it's OK to use the same technique four hours later, because chances are the audience fours hours ago hadn't seen the weather report.

Seidel also encouraged the students to continue critiquing their tapes to catch "crutches" such as distracting body movement and speech lingo.

Burnett-Kurie recalled one instance when he said something that seemed innocent on camera, but was offensive to a viewer. During a weekend in Vermont, the weather was nasty, he said. He joked on camera that he brought the sunshine back on Monday.

"Someone called and said, 'You don't make the weather, God does,' " said Burnett-Kurie. "You have to be careful."

Today Seidel will take the BayRunners Shuttle to BWI Airport in Baltimore, then hop on the Amtrak to the Newark Airport.

On Sunday, he'll cover the weekly NFL live coverage in New York 7 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., then stick around for an expected windstorm.

On Monday, he'll go home to Atlanta. Next week he'll return to New York City to cover a marathon, then cover a Ravens game Nov. 5 before returning to The Weather Channel studio in Atlanta on Nov. 6.

mlewis@dmg.gannett.com

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