Former Fox 21 meteorologist battling aggressive form of cancer

A former Duluth TV meteorologist known for his big heart and love of storms has stage four bone cancer that has been determined to be terminal.

Chris Snider, who worked at Fox 21 News from 2008 to the summer of 2011, was diagnosed with osteosarcoma of the mandible this past summer, according to his sister, Tabatha Snider. He went through three rounds of chemotherapy and two blood transfusions, but none of it has slowed the aggressive form of cancer in his jawbone.

“He said, ‘I won’t accept it,’” Tabatha Snider said. “He said, ‘I have to get better. I have so many things to do yet.’ … They said weeks. I think months. He’s tough. He’s got incredible faith. He’s mind over matter.”

Snider, 28, left Duluth — and the weather business — to perform missionary work in the South and is currently living in Biloxi, Miss. He had been hired for a new meteorologist job just before his diagnosis, Tabatha Snider said.

“He really didn’t think it was going to be a big deal,” she said.

Chris Snider has been a marathon runner and has also practiced mixed martial arts and jujitsu. Tabatha Snider described her brother as health conscious and deeply religious.

She visited him last week and said he has a softball-sized tumor on the side of his face. He has dropped to about 123 pounds, she said.

“He was very active,” she said of the visit. “He’s very upbeat. He’s pushing really hard. We went to the beach, went to the mall, we walked. He’d get tired pretty easy.”

Julie Moravchik, the former news director who launched the newscast at KQDS in 2007, hired Chris Snider as a weekend weathercaster in September 2008. He became chief meteorologist a little over a year later.

“He stood out because of his amazing personality and his warmth,” she said. “It came across over the air — his passion and his overall love of what he did. He went above and beyond as my employee. He became like family.

“He’s one of those one-in-a-million kind of people that you feel honored to spend five minutes with.”

Former Fox 21 news anchor Nick LaFave, who now works in Shreveport, La., said his former colleague is a hard worker.

“Chris is a dedicated guy,” he said. “He worked his way up from a weekend weather guy to chief meteorologist. He was always at work. He loves weathercasting, he loves weather.

“The most important thing I’ve said about Chris, though, is that he lives his faith like no one I’ve ever met.”

Some of the original members of Fox 21’s staff — most who have gone on to other jobs — have been sharing information about their former colleague. They’ve raised money and they want to get him back to Minnesota.

“The first thing he would tell people to do is pray,” LaFave said.

How to help

Tabatha Snider started a site dedicated to raising money for Chris Snider’s expenses at giveforward.com/chrissnider.

Tags: news, weather, health