Dear Subscriber,
Cities across Michigan were hit with as much as 2 feet of snow on Monday. The storm snarled traffic, it closed schools and it sent us into “winter mode” in jarring fashion.
You may not have been happy snow-blowing on Nov. 11, but you were prepared. Because on Thursday, MLive meteorologist Mark Torregrossa posted a forecast stating, “This chill is nothing compared to the arctic blast coming early next week.”
On Sunday, Torregrossa studied the data and refined predictions. By Monday, as the first flakes flew, he declared the storm was “overachieving” and revised snowfall totals upward.
Weather is one of the most popular topics with our readers, all year long. But as it veers from placid to perilous, your demand for forecasts, severe weather updates and general information spikes. And that’s when MLive’s all-day news capabilities really shine.
“Just when I think people feel they don’t need to pay attention anymore, here comes Mother Nature with something else,” Torregrossa said. “Then it becomes daily consumption.”
The numbers bear that out. In May, we had about 600,000 visitors to our weather content. The last 30 days, the number was just shy of 2 million. That’s just to our website – we also get thousands of interactions daily on our Michigan Weather page on Facebook.
Torregrossa, who has a degree in meteorology and was a weatherman in radio and television, joined MLive in 2012. He has seen how technology has improved how weather is predicted, presented and consumed. With more precision comes greater expectations from you, because your life is affected so much by weather.
“The public understands we’re a lot more accurate now, but they also push us more,” Torregrossa said. “Now when we blow it, it’s because we’ve said something five days ago that’s slightly off today. So, their tolerance has dropped.”
Fortunately, Torregrossa doesn’t miss the mark often. But even then, forecasting what’s going to happen is only part of MLive’s comprehensive weather coverage. Our journalists across the state cover breaking news related to weather, like accidents and closings. We cover the aftermath of weather, like the devastation of collapsing dunes along Lake Michigan last month.
And Torregrossa uses his knowledge of weather phenomena to explain WHY these things are going to happen, often months ahead of time. For instance, the destruction of beaches and lakefront property was forewarned by Torregrossa in a June post about Great Lakes water levels that were nearing record highs.
And while we still were enjoying the last warm days of summer, Torregrossa had already prepared his fall colors predictions. When you were on those color tours a month or so later, he was running winter forecast models and letting us know what we were in store for (spoiler alert: harsh).
Last, he doesn't just predict the weather, he explains weather oddities. As in the case of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which just observed the anniversary of its sinking in Lake Superior. In a post Sunday, Torregrossa used modern computer tools to create real-time forecasts for how the storm developed, and ultimately overwhelmed the ship.
That scientific information, 44 years too late for the doomed crew, highlighted the drama and sadness of that fateful voyage in a way the story couldn’t have been told then.
“I guess people are fascinated with the unknown and elusive things of nature,” Torregrossa said.
That goes for whether it’s a meteor shower, a new look at a famous disaster, or simply that fresh foot of snow across your driveway.
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Sincerely,
John Hiner
Vice President of Content for MLive Media Group
Share your thoughts with him at editor@mlive.com |
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