It’s snowing, what do you do? Since 2014 students and staff have been checking MoCo Snow. Learn about the man behind MoCo Snow and how MoCo Snow led to the creation of The MoCo Show – the staple weather app for the residents of Montgomery County.
Born in Silver Spring, Maryland, Alex Tsironis moved to Gaithersburg when he was five where he still lives today, 32 years later. After graduating from Watkins Mill High School in 2000, Tsironis continued his education at Montgomery College. After his associates, his parents told him he may attend the University of Maryland but they couldn’t afford the expense of him living at College Park. Attending MC and commuting to UMD were the short term sacrifices to avoid any student loans. Afterwards, Mr. Tsironis started off split teaching as a physical education teacher between Roberto Clemente Middle School in Germantown and Montgomery Village Middle School. Today he is the head of the P.E. department at Bethesda Middle School.
MoCo Snow first started when Mr. Tsironis used to give his snow day predictions to his students at Roberto Clemente, a magnet school. After his students graduated from the magnet school, they went to high schools all over the county. As it snowed, students and former students started to email him asking for his snow day predictions, the numbers climbed, so Mr. Tsironis made a blog with his snow predictions, while keeping it anonymous for the “first three or four years.” Students and even teachers began checking it for updates. Mr. Tsironis later came to a realization that a teacher couldn’t get in trouble for wanting snow days too. In 2014 one of Tsironis’s former students suggested creating a twitter account; he thought it was crazy at the time, “why would anyone care for weather on twitter,” he says. By popular demand, he created the handle @MCPSsnow also known as MoCo Snow on twitter in February of 2014. After its first month, the account had over a thousand followers and began picking up speed. Today, the twitter account has over 32,000 followers.
Once the winter would end, Alex Tsironis would use MoCo snow to tweet about restaurants and the latest eateries in Montgomery County. His followers would respond to him saying “stick to snow,” and many other comments indicating that they only follow him for snow day predictions. So Tsironis made an account where he could talk about anything he wanted that was Montgomery County related.
In February of 2015, he created The MoCo Show twitter account and in 2017 as Instagram became more popular, he created The MoCo Show Instagram account. Today, The MoCo Show brand has over 21 thousand and 18 thousand followers on Instagram and twitter respectively. Alex Tsironis and his team continue to fill the MoCo show with not only elaborate articles but houses on the market, podcasts, and even limited-edition releases of merchandise.
Q&A with Mr. MoCo
How did he gather all of his information and updates?
The historical photos are typically sent to him by his followers as credited in the bio. The news is mostly based on the relationships he has developed throughout the past couple of years. He used to tell restaurants what he was doing and post pictures and a description about it. Sometimes they end up getting more customers because of it. It’s a two-way situation where he and the restaurants are helping each other gain publicity simultaneously.
Top few places to eat around MoCO?
Greek food Cava Mezze in Gaithersburg, El Pizico for Italian food in Rockville, Coastal Flats in Downtown Crown, and El Sapo Cuban restaurant in Silverspring.
Go to MoCo fun facts?
Kanye West’s dad lived in Takoma Park and Kanye himself would come here all the time; as in interviews Kanye has shouted out Takoma Park and credited the DMV for taking some style and bringing it back to Chicago. There are even pictures of five-year-old Kanye taking the redline and interviews of Kanye shouting out cities in MoCo.
Dave Chappelle Grew up in Silver spring
- Sylvester Stallone, one of the most recognized actors seen in iconic films such as Rocky, Rambo and The Expendables spent most of his time in Silver Spring. Mr. Tsironis even ran into his brother who was also an actor a few weeks ago at the Cava Mezze.
Alex Tsironis, also dubbed as Mr. MoCo by his followers, is a new age success story, having turned a simple idea from the Roberto Clemente gym locker room into a staple in Montgomery County media. He is very welcoming and wants everyone to know that he loves the support of his followers. Anyone can reach out to him on his platforms with any news, ideas and questions.
Article by Daniela Perez of Northwest High School
Image courtesy of Moco Show