March 32 Weather Report: Partly Cloudy in East China

Yangzhou Television viewers were left confused by a March 32 weather report. It seemed to be a joke about the imminent April Fools’ Day, but the station later corrected it as a serious mistake.
March 32 Weather Report: Partly Cloudy in East China
Yangzhou TV evening news last Friday predicted that it would be partly cloudy on March 32. The online response was mostly mocking. (Weibo.com)
4/2/2013
Updated:
7/18/2015

 Yangzhou Television in Jiangsu Province broadcast an unusual weather report last Friday evening, predicting partly cloudy weather for March 32. 

Some viewers thought the weather presenter was celebrating the upcoming April Fools’ Day, but on March 30, the deputy director of Yangzhou Television issued a serious statement saying the report was an “editorial and verbal mistake” made by the staffer, and assured viewers that the station had corrected the next day’s weather report.  

Viewers and other online bloggers had plenty of online comments to share about the incident, with some less than positive remarks about the station’s response, such as this one: “How do you make that kind of mistake ‘verbally and editorially’? So unprofessional.”

Another netizen said, “They should just claim they were celebrating the arrival of April Fool’s Day.”

Some netizens suggested that it was no joke, but rather “an IQ test.” 

“They made a mistake on the temperature too. It should be 921 degrees Celsius,” joked another netizen, in the spirit of the holiday.

Translation and research by Hsin-Yi Lin. Written in English by Carol Wickenkamp.

Read the original Chinese article