Dylan Dreyer. Photo: Courtesy of NBC News.
Dylan Dreyer, Co-Host, The 3rd Hour of Today,” and Meteorologist with NBC News, is the 2025 Convocation Speaker for the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences on May 19.
Dreyer, who graduated cum laude from Rutgers Cook College in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in meteorology, served as weather anchor for the Rutgers TV network and radio station. She returns to the George H. Cook Campus to address the more than 800 degree candidates, along with their families and guests at the SEBS 2025 Convocation, which will take place on the lawns near to Passion Puddle.
Dreyer is currently the co-host of 3rd Hour of TODAY and a weekday weather correspondent and regular co-host for TODAY and Nightly News with Lester Holt. She first joined Weekend TODAY in 2012.
She is the host of Earth Odyssey with Dylan Dreyer, the winner of over a dozen Telly Awards, which airs Saturday mornings on NBC. In addition, she co-hosts two weekly radio shows on Sirius XM, Off the Rails with fellow TODAY co-hosts Al Roker and Sheinelle Jones, and Lunch Date with Dylan and Brian, a joint show with husband Brian Fichera. You can also often catch her filling in on NBC Nightly News: Kids Edition — a digest of the top headlines broken down for kids to best understand the world today.
Throughout the years, Dreyer has reported live for NBC News from some of history’s most devastating storms, including Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and Hurricane Milton in 2024. She also covered the North American polar vortex of 2014 and Boston’s record-breaking snowfall in 2015. She was also a part of the network’s extensive coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang. Most recently she reported live on the devastating Los Angels fires, the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in California history.
Dreyer recently launched, A Peek Out Your Window, an interactive board book for the youngest of readers. She also authored Misty the Cloud: Fun Is in the Air, and The Thing About Spring, both part of A Step into Reading franchise. This is a follow up to Misty the Cloud: Friends Through Rain or Shine, and her New York Times best seller, Misty the Cloud: A Very Stormy Day. The picture book series features her beloved character Misty – a little cloud with big feelings. Dreyer combines her extensive weather knowledge with her experience as a mom in this social-emotional learning franchise.
Dylan Dreyer pictured with Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences. Photo by Tae Kim. Source: Rutgers Today
Dreyer was profiled in a 2013 alumni story by the school shortly after paying a visit to the George H. Cook campus on the invitation of her former professor, Alan Robock from the Department of Environmental Sciences. She was there to talk to students about a career as a broadcast meteorologist. In introducing Dreyer to the class, Robock described her as “an excellent student.”
She told the students that, growing up in Manalapan, N.J., she wasn’t sure what she wanted to study when she got to college. She liked math and science, “and meteorology sounded like fun,” so meteorology it was, although she deemed it “a tough major.”
Dreyer honed her early broadcast skills in the Rutgers “WeatherWatcher” program, which at that time consisted of a pre-recorded broadcast from a small room with a PowerPoint and one camera. “I worked so hard to get this little pre-recorded weather show done,” she shared.
She started out thinking she would be a research meteorologist and even spent some time as a student working with climate organizations. But, following an internship with WCBS-TV New York weatherman Craig Allen, she knew being on television was her “dream job.”
Dreyer, at the time of her visit to speak to the students, had already joined NBC’s Weekend TODAY the year before.
“My first day on the Today Show was September 14. There I was on national television, sitting next to Lester Holt, a broadcast icon. I was sweating, nervous, but it was just like all the other times – you just work on making the next show better than the current one,” she shared.
Prior to joining Weekend TODAY in 2012, Dreyer worked at WHDH-TV, the NBC affiliate in Boston, where she served as the weekday morning meteorologist on Today in New England since 2007. In 2008, she was named Boston’s Best Meteorologist by Improper Bostonian magazine. From 2005 to 2007, Dreyer was the weekend meteorologist at WJAR-TV, the NBC affiliate in Providence, Rhode Island, and from 2003 to 2005 she was the weekend meteorologist at WICU-TV, the NBC affiliate in Erie, Pennsylvania.
At the time, Dreyer had close to a decade of broadcast experience and had this advice for the students.
“The road to becoming a broadcast meteorologist is anything but easy. It takes sacrifice, commitment, perseverance, and a very thick skin. A good dose of luck didn’t hurt either,” she said.
Read more about Dreyer’s visit and her journey in this engaging alumni profile in the Newsroom.
