National Grid Blames Meteorologists For Storm That Left 421,000 Without Power

You often hear hackneyed jokes about people blaming the TV weatherman for the bad weather. But the folks at National Grid are doing just that, pointing the finger at forecasters for not accurately predicting a storm that left hundreds of thousands of customers in New England without power.

“They really underestimated the moisture content of the cold weather pattern that was coming in,” National Grid’s chief operations officer tells the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

The power company says that, had the forecast been more accurate, it would have been able to better prepare for the heavy, wet snow that brought down tree branches and power lines all over the region.

“All of those decisions are based off of forecasts that were fundamentally missed by the meteorologists,” adds the company’s president of U.S. operations. “They missed the amount of snow, and they missed the weight of the snow.”

But a spokesman for Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency defends the predictions to WBZ-TV: “Maybe the totals weren’t exactly right, but the gist of the snowstorm was… Heavy wet snow, and expect lot of trees to come down, and that’s what happened.”

Similarly miffed by National Grid’s comments is WBZ’s executive weather producer, who says, “They’re looking for someone else to blame perhaps, but they’re looking in the wrong place.”

National Grid officials defend storm response [Telegram.com]

National Grid Blames Forecasters For “Underestimating” October Storm [WBZ-TV]

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