{"id":6255,"date":"2023-04-05T11:33:06","date_gmt":"2023-04-05T15:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=6255"},"modified":"2023-04-05T11:33:06","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T15:33:06","slug":"mississippi-meteorologist-goes-viral-after-praying-on-air-during-deadly-tornado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/04\/mississippi-meteorologist-goes-viral-after-praying-on-air-during-deadly-tornado.html","title":{"rendered":"Mississippi Meteorologist Goes Viral After Praying On-Air During Deadly Tornado"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_6258\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6258\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6258\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/04\/metorologist-prayer_credit-wtvacom-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"576\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6258\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">WTVA \/ YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">A Mississippi meteorologist went viral after he prayed on-air while giving a weather report of a tornado headed for a small town. Meteorologist Matt Laubhan was reporting a massive tornado that was within minutes of the small town of Amory, MS. Laubhan grew visibly concerned about the town\u2019s well-being, encouraging people to get to safety. As the tornado approached on radar, he paused mid-report, saying, \u201cDear Jesus, please help them. Amen.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ssdOB6q_Pgc\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The heartfelt plea is being credited for saving lives. \u201cHe saved lives, for sure,\u201d Leah Ann Hubbard told <\/span><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The Independent<\/span><\/em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">. \u201cWe knew it was coming, but you didn\u2019t know if it was going to touch down. All of a sudden, Matt says, \u2018This is a potentially deadly tornado.\u2019 I just remember him saying \u2018deadly\u2019 over and over.\u201d She stated the prayer alerted viewers to how serious the situation was. Laubhan later spoke to\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/videos\/media\/2023\/03\/27\/mississippi-amory-meteorologist-pray-wtva-matt-laubhan-contd-intl-ovn-hnk-vpx.cnn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">CNN<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0about why he prayed. He began by saying he wasn\u2019t originally intending to pray but that the gravity of the situation had left him at a loss for words, and he felt \u201coverwhelmed.\u201d \u201cIt just kind of came out,\u201d he said. He said it was a moment where God \u201cjust kind of took over.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Laubhan spoke more about his faith with <\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.faithwire.com\/2023\/03\/31\/weatherman-reveals-why-he-prayed-to-jesus-on-air-as-deadly-tornado-hit-god-helps-people\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Faithwire<\/span><\/em><\/a><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">He stated that he did not believe in coincidences and that he had just read an article from the Storm Prediction Center that gave him an idea of the sort of severity he was looking at for the tornado in Amory. He then shared about the importance of prayer in his life and the life of his family. \u201c[I\u2019ve] always taught [my] kids that prayer does not need to be like a pharisee, this long, elaborate [invocation]. If you have something in your heart, say it. God understands it,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">As he addressed people saying the prayer helped them to take his warning more seriously, he credited God. \u201cI believe that God helps people interpret and hear things the way they need to hear it. I do ask from time to time for people \u2026 if you feel compelled, pray \u2026 but I don\u2019t lead the prayer. It\u2019s public airwaves, and you want to make sure that you don\u2019t alienate anybody,\u201d he said. He said the prayer impacted people because \u201cIt was authentic.\u201d \u201cIt did not come from me,\u201d he said. \u201cI did not intend to pray. I\u2019m not gonna say, I thought in my head, \u2018Don\u2019t ever pray,\u2019 but I also never intended to do it. So, I do think that it just kind of came bursting out and that it came in a situation where so many people were hurt and killed.\u201d Over two dozen people have been reported killed during the Mississippi tornado. If you wish to give financially to support the victims, you can donate\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.samaritanspurse.org\/article\/samaritans-purse-responding-after-deadly-mississippi-storms\/?utm_source=Ggl&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_campaign=m_YGND-N23V&amp;utm_content=Mississippi-Tornadoes&amp;gclid=Cj0KCQjw8qmhBhClARIsANAtbocrmKEuEGCcU3mfJUiZ6AraJpK8eyBaO2e8mNAbhmEjX8WAPBocUwMaAizNEALw_wcB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">here<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Mississippi meteorologist went viral after he prayed on-air while giving a weather report of a tornado headed for a small town. Meteorologist Matt Laubhan was reporting a massive tornado that was within minutes of the small town of Amory, MS. Laubhan grew visibly concerned about the town\u2019s well-being, encouraging people to get to safety.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":6258,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mississippi Meteorologist Goes Viral After Praying On-Air During Deadly Tornado<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Mississippi meteorologist prays on live TV after reporting on deadly tornado heading towards a small nearby town.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/04\/mississippi-meteorologist-goes-viral-after-praying-on-air-during-deadly-tornado.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mississippi Meteorologist Goes Viral After Praying On-Air During Deadly Tornado\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mississippi meteorologist prays on live TV after reporting on deadly tornado heading towards a small nearby town.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/04\/mississippi-meteorologist-goes-viral-after-praying-on-air-during-deadly-tornado.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christ News Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-04-05T15:33:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/04\/metorologist-prayer_credit-wtvacom-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mississippi Meteorologist Goes Viral After Praying On-Air During Deadly Tornado","description":"Mississippi meteorologist prays on live TV after reporting on deadly tornado heading towards a small nearby town.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/04\/mississippi-meteorologist-goes-viral-after-praying-on-air-during-deadly-tornado.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mississippi Meteorologist Goes Viral After Praying On-Air During Deadly Tornado","og_description":"Mississippi meteorologist prays on live TV after reporting on deadly tornado heading towards a small nearby town.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/04\/mississippi-meteorologist-goes-viral-after-praying-on-air-during-deadly-tornado.html","og_site_name":"Christ News Today","article_published_time":"2023-04-05T15:33:06+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":576,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/04\/metorologist-prayer_credit-wtvacom-scaled.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/04\/mississippi-meteorologist-goes-viral-after-praying-on-air-during-deadly-tornado.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/04\/mississippi-meteorologist-goes-viral-after-praying-on-air-during-deadly-tornado.html","name":"Mississippi Meteorologist Goes Viral After Praying On-Air During Deadly Tornado","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/04\/mississippi-meteorologist-goes-viral-after-praying-on-air-during-deadly-tornado.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/04\/mississippi-meteorologist-goes-viral-after-praying-on-air-during-deadly-tornado.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/04\/metorologist-prayer_credit-wtvacom-scaled.jpg","datePublished":"2023-04-05T15:33:06+00:00","dateModified":"2023-04-05T15:33:06+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/77cb6eeb5c74ee0eb8c77ea1ebc43c6a"},"description":"Mississippi meteorologist prays on live TV after reporting on deadly tornado heading towards a small nearby town.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/04\/mississippi-meteorologist-goes-viral-after-praying-on-air-during-deadly-tornado.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/04\/mississippi-meteorologist-goes-viral-after-praying-on-air-during-deadly-tornado.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/04\/mississippi-meteorologist-goes-viral-after-praying-on-air-during-deadly-tornado.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/04\/metorologist-prayer_credit-wtvacom-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/04\/metorologist-prayer_credit-wtvacom-scaled.jpg","width":768,"height":576,"caption":"WTVA \/ YouTube"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/04\/mississippi-meteorologist-goes-viral-after-praying-on-air-during-deadly-tornado.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Mississippi Meteorologist Goes Viral After Praying On-Air During Deadly Tornado"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/","name":"Christ News Today","description":"Christian News From Around the Globe","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/77cb6eeb5c74ee0eb8c77ea1ebc43c6a","name":"Leigh Pizzutilla","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/author\/lpizzutilla"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6255"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6264,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6255\/revisions\/6264"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}