'Today' Weatherman Al Roker to Attempt 34-Hour-Long Forecast for Guinness Record
"Today Show" weatherman Al Roker is trying to forecast his way into the Guinness Book of Records, NBC announced. He "is attempting to set a new mark for longest uninterrupted live weather report broadcast - a remarkable 34 hours," the network boasted.
The host gets five minutes of break time every hour and can choose to bank them to take an extended rest, NBC detailed. It's all for a good cause: Roker is raising money for the United States Service Organizations, which supports members of the U.S. armed forces.
The network listed the specific rules Roker must follow:
He must talk about weather for the entirety of the time.
He can talk about current weather, and weather seven days in the past or seven days ahead.
For every 60 minutes completed, he can take a five-minute break.
Two independent witnesses must also be there at all times.
NBC admitted the so-called "Rokerthon" is "a stunt," the Daily Beast's Lloyd Grove wrote. "It commences Wednesday night at 10 p.m. on MSNBC's 'The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell,' will be live-streamed online and carried on more than 220 NBC affiliates nationwide, plus stations in Canada and Australia, show up on CNBC and the NBC Nightly News, and, if all goes well, will end 34 hours after it began at 8 a.m. Friday on 'Today,'" he detailed.
Roker is trying to outdo Norwegian meteorologist Eli Kari Gjengedal, who in September spent slightly longer than 33 continuous hours presenting the weather on Norway's TV2, the Daily Beast said. Gjengedal thus holds the current Guinness world record.
"We had a story about this woman in Norway and her non-stop live broadcast," Roker said. "And I kind of flippantly said, 'I can do that. Sure, I'll do that.' ... And everybody said, 'Wow. You're gonna do that?' And I said, 'Yeah, I guess so. Why not? It could be fun. It's a challenge.'"
Viewers who want to find out how Roker is doing can do so on the "Today Show" site, the Huffington Post noted. On Twitter, meanwhile, updates and comments will be available under @alroker.
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