For the past 38 years (as of 2024), Jim Cantore, The Weather Channel's "Storm-tracker," has tracked, chased, run into, and then reported on some of the most extreme storms on the planet. A 2011 USA Today article on Cantore noted, "Whether he is leaning into the ferocious winds of a hurricane or shivering as a blast of polar air drops down from the Arctic, Cantore is often on the scene to help viewers appreciate how weather tests us."
In the spring of 2011, Cantore provided coverage in the midst of the severe tornado outbreaks in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Joplin, Missouri. Both towns suffered extensive damage. "It was as unthinkable as you would think," Cantore says. "Houses were piled up into corners, and the streets looked more like movie sets."
But according to Cantore, these kinds of storms pale in comparison to the personal storms of life that some people experience on a daily basis. In particular, Cantore thinks of his two children, both of whom were born with Fragile X syndrome, a genetic disorder that can lead to autism-like symptoms. Cantore says that his children have the real storms of life, or what he calls the "storms that hurt the most and never go away."
Cantore says, "What my children have to deal with on a daily basis is by far more difficult than anything I will ever come in contact with."
