What’s
with the Patch?
By
Will Collette
The
official
forecast from the National Weather Service for Charlestown for today
through Monday calls for scattered flurries and no accumulation today, only a
20 to 40% chance of flurries on Saturday with maybe an inch or less of
accumulation, and a 50 to 60% of snow on Sunday and Monday.
The
Weather
Channel’s forecast for Charlestown calls for a 30 to 50% of snow showers on
Saturday and, like the Weather Services, less than an inch or maybe nothing. Sunday
night, they say we have a 70% chance of getting an inch. On Monday, the odds
are higher of precipitation – 80 to 80% and one to three inches of that dreaded
“winter mix.”
All
of which we should be able to handle. But then there’s the South
Kingstown-Narragansett Patch forecast with this headline:
It’s
OK for a forecaster or two – there now are many different weather forecasting
models in play – to be an outlier. Sometimes they’re right.
But
so far this winter, the Patch has run a long string of Snowmeggedon headlines
like this, only to have the actual results be much less.
In
many professions, the secret to success is to “under-promise, then
over-achieve.” But the sure way to lose your credibility is to “over-promise
and under-achieve.” Ask Brian Williams.
As my colleague Tom Ferrio noted in comments on one of my earlier storm stories, Patch seems to have been doing this sort of exaggerated weather reporting for a while, perhaps to draw more readers to click on the story. Great for short term numbers, but lousy for building trust with your readership.