Meteorologist completely loses it during live weather report after prank accidentally comes back to haunt him

Nearly nine million people have now watched a Maine meteorologist completely lose it on live television.

Patrick Osborn was in the middle of a weather report for WABI on Sunday morning when he suddenly struggled to speak, repeatedly breaking into laughter as he tried to deliver the forecast.

The bizarre moment lasted around a minute, with Osborn gasping between temperatures, apologizing to viewers and eventually stepping away from the camera before returning and handing the broadcast over to a colleague.

But it wasn't a mystery illness or technical problem that sent him into hysterics.

Osborn later explained that the whole thing started with a prank he had tried to pull during a commercial break.

The weather reporter was cracking up laughing for most of his presentation. (WABI 5)

Osborn had been attempting to prank fellow anchor Josh Gabbard by playing a short Charlie Brown clip featuring one of the show's instantly recognizable sound effects.

The problem was that he hadn't realized the video wasn't actually short.

Instead, it was an hour-long compilation, with the same sound periodically playing again.

That meant the audio unexpectedly returned just as Osborn was beginning his weather segment, and hearing it at precisely the wrong moment was enough to completely derail him.

"It's the Charlie Brown phone call noise. It's one where his mom or teacher calls him, and it's the 'Wa, wa, wa,'" Osborn explained to WABI.

He later recalled the incident while speaking with WABI co-anchor Brian Sullivan, admitting that he had previously managed to contain himself when something funny happened on air.

"I got a fit of laughter that I was not able to control on air, unfortunately. A lot of times, something funny happens, and I'm able to contain myself, but this one, it was just a little too overwhelming."

Once the laughter took over, Osborn found himself unable to get through the forecast normally.

He tried to continue speaking, but repeatedly dissolved into giggles before eventually leaving the shot. He returned shortly afterward, although the situation remained too much for him to handle, and he ultimately tossed back to another member of the team.

Osborn said the fact he was in a setting where he was expected not to laugh only made the situation worse.

"Something as silly and light-hearted as a Charlie Brown sound made me completely lose my composure."

"I was just trying to keep it together but I couldn't. Like, when you're not supposed to laugh, you're in an environment when you can't laugh, and you're trying to hold it back, that just makes it 10 times worse," he said.

Osborn added that he had "tried to get through it," but Gabbard eventually had to leave the studio.

Sullivan appeared to find the whole incident just as funny, telling his colleague: "That's the hardest I've heard … really anyone laugh."

WABI later shared the meteorologist's spectacular giggle fit on TikTok, where it had amassed nearly nine million views by Thursday night.