The Stunning Transformation Of Dylan Dreyer

Making her grand debut into the world in 1981, Dylan Dreyer was born and raised in Manalapan, N.J., just like her parents. And in 2019, she took Today viewers to the township, revisiting the site of her grandparents' farm and touring her childhood house alongside her father, who constructed the house himself. "This is the most exciting part. This is the house I grew up in. I mean, my entire life, my entire childhood, everything, was at this house, the house my dad built," Dreyer said in the segment. At the start of the tour, she exclaimed, "This is so fun! I wanna hug the trees! Like, I miss these trees!"

The house tour brought back all the memories for Dreyer. She recalled sitting on the roof as her father did chores, trying to get a good angle on the pool table in the basement, dangling from the ceiling above the stairs, and using the reflections on the photo frames near the staircase to catch a glimpse of the presents under the tree on Christmas morning.

As a member of the Class of 1999 at Manalapan High School in New Jersey, Dylan Dreyer's "true passion" was varsity girls' softball, as she revealed in a 2017 Today show segment when she revisited the school (and, to her chagrin, met high school seniors who were born the year she graduated).

During the nostalgic visit, she reconnected with her old softball coach, who owned up to throwing a bat in frustration amid young Dreyer's "batting slump" but had nothing but praise for the meteorologist. "This young lady was the toughest, the fastest, quality person that we had here at Manalapan for a long time," the coach said.

The sport runs in the family, too: Dreyer's brother Mike, an Air Force veteran who lost his right lower leg in a construction mishap, plays softball with the Wounded Warrior Softball Team, according to a bio published in The Star Democrat.

After graduating from Manalapan High School, Dylan Dreyer stayed in New Jersey for college, attending Rutgers University with an eye toward an engineering degree. In a 2017 NBC News video, she explained that she didn't know what to expect in college. She only knew that she was going "to experience everything for the first time." Unpopularity, unfortunately, might have been one of those new experiences: Dreyer said that she called herself "Chillin' Dylan" when asked for a nickname in her freshman dorm... and "didn't make friends after that." Poor Dylan!

After Dreyer realized that engineering wasn't her passion, she switched to meteorology, a major that capitalized on her science and math training up to that point. And she served as weather anchor for the Rutger's TV network and radio station before she graduated cum laude from the school in 2003, according to her NBC News bio. "I realized that there were times where I needed to put aside any social life and really study and work hard," she said in the video, reflecting on those college years. However, she noted, "I also learned, though, that having a life outside of work is just as important."

Dylan Dreyer hit the big time in 2012 when she joined NBC's Weekend Today. "My first day on the Today show was September 14," she told Rutgers students the following year. "There I was on national television, sitting next to [anchor] 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."

That first day in Rockefeller Center came just weeks before her wedding — and just a month before Hurricane Sandy hit New York and her native New Jersey. During that storm, she worked 12-hour shifts in the newsroom day after day. "You have to do forecasting practically around the clock before the storm, then you have to talk non-stop during the storm, and you still can't stop after the storm," she explained during her talk.

Since joining Today, Dreyer has covered the polar vortex of 2014, Boston's record snowfall in 2015, and Hurricane Harvey in 2017, and she was on hand for NBC's coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, as noted by her NBC News bio.

In February 2013, Dylan Dreyer was on the way from New York City to Hartford, Conn., to cover a snowstorm when the car she was riding in lost traction in the hazardous driving conditions. "Typical weather-related accident: We spun around, we got hit, I smashed my head against the window," she told her Today colleagues by phone. The anchors were quick to clarify that Dreyer wasn't driving at the time, as she'd mentioned tweeting while out on the road.

After the accident, Dreyer went to the ER, where doctors told her she had gotten her first-ever concussion. "They're not fun!" she said. She even showed off her "goose egg" head bump on Twitter. 

Worse yet, Dreyer couldn't provide coverage of the blizzard in her impaired state. With her concussion, even looking at her computer screen made her feel dizzy. "It was heartbreaking not to be a part of the storm," she said on air. "I hated it."

Dylan Dreyer was on the ground in Florida in September 2017 as Hurricane Irma made landfall there after ravaging the Caribbean. And after she returned to the Today studio in New York, Dreyer told viewers about the experience, saying that storm-chasing is "out of [her] comfort zone."

And in terms of storms, Irma was "as impressive as it gets," she said. "Going into, at the time, a Category 5 hurricane, even if it weakened to a Category 4, I really didn't know what to expect with 150 mile-per-hour winds." Even though she had a capable crew at her side and they had found shelter at a hotel, she was scared — and even thought about putting the mattress against the window. She said as much to husband Brian Fichera. "I'm scared. I've got a lot at home," she texted Fichera.

He texted back to reassure her, saying that she is "smart" and "athletic" and that he "believed [in her] 100 percent." He added, "And if you can give birth and raise a child, you can do anything." Clearly, Dreyer has the support she needs at home to push through tough times!

In January 2020, Dylan Dreyer finally got her wish for a second child when she welcomed her and husband Brian Fichera's son Oliver George Fichera into the world. Coincidentally, the little guy was born during an airing of the third hour of the Today show. "I feel good," Dreyer told her co-hosts as she called into the show the following day. "I just feel so happy and so blessed. I just got all my drugs, so I'm doing just fine!"

Dreyer also said that Oliver became a frontrunner for the baby's name after she noticed a lot of signs — like when picked up a suit for her husband from the London store Oliver Brown during her coverage of the Royal Ascot horse race. And their first son, Calvin, latched on to that selection for his younger brother, even if he pronounced it "Ov-i-ler."

Baby No. 2 made the family feel complete, Dreyer told her colleagues. "It was a long time coming," she added, referencing her fertility journey. "This year started off a lot differently than the way it ended."

From 2016 to 2017, Dylan Dreyer hosted Journey with Dylan Dreyer, a morning NBC docuseries in which she covered topics ranging from ancient Egyptian rulers to Kilimanjaro mountain climbers to Amazon forest-dwellers.

That show begat another NBC Saturday morning show, Earth Odyssey with Dylan Dreyer, the third season of which debuted in 2021. As described by NBC, the show "gives audiences a captivating look at the symbiosis between all living things, in the most larger-than-life places on Earth."

Dreyer raved about that hosting gig in a 2019 WBIR.com interview as she filmed an intro for the show alongside scene-stealing, wardrobe-nibbling penguins at a Tennessee aquarium. "I am such a science geek," she said. She added, "So often I'm in a studio. It's actually good to go out and film the intros and outros in the aquariums. My only thing that I am sad about is that I never have time to bring Calvin, my 2-year-old, who would absolutely love every single inch of these aquariums."