Tune In. We Might Be Wrong

Cable World, March 12, 2001

There's no business like snow business at the Weather Channel.

Not only did it score its fifth-highest weekend rating March 3-4 with a 0.82, it broke its all-time daily record for visitors to its weather.com Web site (with 33.3 million page views March 5) -- all for a big blizzard that failed to live up to expectations.

After racking up the high ratings, the folks at the Weather Channel felt compelled to air a special edition of its hour-long newsmagazine, Atmospheres, March 7 what could have been one of the worst storms in decades was not what they anticipated.

Ray Ban, the network's SVP-meteorology science and strategy, along with the Weather Channel's winter weather expert Paul Kocin, explained to viewers the storm's progress -- along with the whys and wherefores of predicting the weather. The upshot? Surprise! Calling long-term weather conditions isn't an exact science.

To some extent, ban says, meteorologists are victims of past success.

"It all began with the March 1993 superstorm, when all the models converged on the same scenario, which turned out to be right on the money. That set the bar for three-day weather forecasts," says Ban. "But the earth is surrounded by a huge ocean of air that hasn't been measured in its entirety. So the best we can do is communicate any uncertainty to consumers."

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