The Best Thing That Happened This Week: Weather Sommelier Chris Sowers

What goes best with 18 inches of wet, gloppy snow?

We got snow this week — though not as much snow as we thought we were getting, which you’d think would make us happy but only made us enraged. In the prelude to Scary Storm Stella, we were treated to the usual vintage warnings about no-savesies, SEPTA emergency plans, Chris Christie bluster (brrr!), and cinnamon-raisin bread. Only one local weathercaster, though, was intrepid enough to give the people what they really wanted: WPVI’s Chris Sowers. Making the Internet rounds was this screen-grab of Sowers’s graphic depiction of how much wine to stock up on for the storm, depending on your anticipated precipitation. Parents everywhere nodded in recognition — what goes best with an Allentown blizzard? Twenty-five bottles of red! Which made it all the more disappointing when Sowers spoke out and roundly denounced his own truth-telling: “Just so everyone knows, this was Photoshopped. I didn’t actually go on the air with a graphic like this. I can’t believe how quickly this is spreading.” Okay, but for next winter, Chris, we think you’re onto something.