Partly Sunny

I’m going to warn you ahead of time that today’s post is going to require some thinking on your part. I apologize in advance for any discomfort.

According to the National Weather Service (NWS), the terms “partly cloudy” and “partly sunny” mean exactly the same thing. That is, when between 3/8 and 5/8 of the sky is covered by clouds meteorologists can describe that as either “partly cloudy” or “partly sunny”.

But what about the difference between “partly cloudy” and “mostly sunny”? It turns out that the NWS has a clear definition of how to determine, and report, the amount of cloud cover (see the end of this post).

Why is that important? I’m glad you asked.

Let’s say you were thinking about going to the beach. If you heard the weather forecast, would you be more likely to go if you heard the sky would be “partly sunny” or “partly cloudy”? Stop and ponder that a bit before you continue.

If I were planning a trip to the beach for sun, I might be more inclined to go if I heard “partly sunny”. But, if I were concerned about exposure to UV, I might be more inclined to go if I heard “partly cloudy”.

Now, what happens if you heard it would be “only partly sunny” or “only partly cloudy”. Would that change how you look at things? I’d bet it does. The addition of the word “only” can change how people process the same information.

A couple of days ago, I posted an essay about Hasbro’s recall of the “Giggle and Sing” Troll Doll. Watch the video and consider it when you read further. Just Google “troll doll recall” and you’ll see a link to the YouTube video.

I had originally posted a link to a video showing a problem with the doll but then Facebook put a flag on the post saying that it was “partly false” information.

But, doesn’t “partly false” also mean “partly true”?
By stating that the video is “partly false” they’re setting the expectations of anyone who views the video. The same would be true if they used “partly true”.

But what expectation are they setting?

If you see that an article has been “fact checked”, and is flagged as “partly false”, are you more or less likely to click through to the article than if it was rated “partly true”? Just by adding a truthfulness rating to the post, they’re influencing your decision to read the article or not.

What’s the range between true and false? Is there a scale that describes the amount of truthfulness? Do all “fact checkers” use the same scale? How do they determine how truthful something is? Let’s say that an article had 10 main points and the “fact checker” found one of them to be false. Does that make the article “partly false” or “mostly true”? Are all points in an article weighted the same or do some count more than others?

The point is that, without context, I don’t know for sure what “partly false” means and I’m left to make my own interpretation. My interpretation may or not be what the “fact checker” intended to communicate. “Fact-checking” doesn’t reduce confusion. It just makes us confused in a different way.

Just like the NWS scale, fact-checking only makes sense in the right context. “Partly sunny” and “partly cloudy” only mean the same thing during the daytime. At night, “partly sunny” doesn’t exist.

Related Articles:
Fact Checking is “Mostly False”

Extra credit reading:

Here’s the NWS definition for determining cloud cover for day/ night: