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White Shield Father and Daughter’s Weather-Related Video Breaks the Internet Overnight!

Written by Jacqueline Hayward Spegal; 

Finance Officer

In White Shield North Dakota, Bernardo Steve Garcia and his 10 year old daughter Leah Garcia made a TicTok Video that went viral overnight. The video displayed a wet shirt freezing in the North Dakota cold and wind in under 30 seconds. Garcia, who goes by Steve and @stevieg19861 on TicTok, enjoys making TicTok videos with his children that are both educational and entertaining. “I never thought I would be famous.” he explained. They posted the video at around 8:30 pm on January 6th, 2022 and by 8:30 am the next morning his cousin James Yellowbird, reached out to him to let him know that his video already had over 3 million views. 

Winter in North Dakota can be brutal, a place where you can feel a brain freeze within a few minutes of being outside, where the wind can take your breath away if you do not hold it and hustle through your outdoor tasks, and where a few moments of unprotected skin outdoors cause severe pain and can lead to frost bite within minutes. Garcia wanted to display the degree of severe weather in an educational way. The night that the video was taken the temperature was -25 degrees Fahrenheit in White Shield, North Dakota, according to localconditions.com. The nearest wind chill factor record found for January 6th was a forecast for New Town, North Dakota by the US National Weather Service Bismarck North Dakota. According to their Facebook Post the temperature felt like -42 degrees Fahrenheit with the wind chill factor. 

On January 6th, 2022, Garcia said to his daughter “I am bored, record me doing a TicTok.” He remembered. She groaned but she took the video. Later after going to school and finding out that the video went viral Leah told her dad “Dad you’re everywhere, you’re popular, everyone is talking about you!” She was excited about the overnight fame but also jokingly asked “When do I get paid?” Garcia is very proud of his daughter’s camera work and video producing skills and happy that she is excited to learn. He enjoys doing experiments with his children in the winter.

Steve and Leah Garcia
Beginning of TicToc experiment, wet neon yellow shirt
30 seconds in North Dakota winds and below freezing temperatures

The video, taken by Leah Garcia, displayed Steve Garcia, getting a neon yellow shirt wet under a faucet and then taking it outside in the brutal wind and cold with music from Disney’s Frozen playing in the background. The winds were as listed as high as 16 miles per hour that night on localconditions.com, however there were multiple periods of time that measurements could not be found for. The wind level and below freezing temperatures at 8:30 pm allowed the shirt to dry quickly. In under 30 seconds, the shirt dried in the shape of a human form, the video has a final shot of the shirt being set down on the ground, fully frozen and filled out into the human form. The video had over 31.4 million views as of noon on January 9th, 2022 and counting. Garcia and his daughter plan on making additional weather related educational and entertaining videos on TicTok, they recently added another video where Garcia took boiling hot water and threw it against the wind, the water turned to snow before the wind threw it back at him. He wanted to assure viewers that he did not get burned in the process, the boiling water turned to snow before it blew back at him. To view the local Garcia family’s upcoming educational videos, you can follow his Tik Tok profile @stevieg19861.

Frozen shirt in under 30 seconds
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