Ice cream Sunday? How a cool treat made it into EMO’s storm advisory
For a sweet moment on Saturday, Nova Scotians were told they could expect freezing rain and ice cream on Sunday.
The freezing rain part was definitely true, but the ice cream was the result of a tasty slip-up in the French-to-English translation of a Nova Scotia Emergency Management Office Facebook post.
«The rain will then change into a mix of freezing rain and ice cream on Sunday as temperatures quickly rise in many areas,» the translation read.
The post has since been corrected, but it attracted a lot of good-natured attention.
«There were a few comments around what type of ice cream or those types of things,» said Paul Mason, EMO executive director. «I can certainly understand the kind of light-hearted humour around it.»
Mason, who calls butterscotch his flavour of choice, said the original post was meant to keep people informed about the weather and to make preparations.
He said EMO will try to post in English and French. What happened in this instance is some people’s Facebook accounts automatically translated the French post to English, said Mason.
«And when that happened, it changed ice pellets to ice cream in English and that’s, in effect, how that got out into the social media stream with the ice cream reference.»
Comments started dribbling in.
Most people found it funny, with one commenting the ice cream snafu was «the best forecast in ages» and others joking «this sundae will come complete with drizzle and sprinkles» and «so what you’re saying [is] there’s a 100% Chance of McFlurries?»
Mason said the cherry on top of the ice cream situation is it got more people to follow EMO on Facebook.
«We actually increased our Facebook followers by around 500 so it’s a good opportunity to raise awareness with regard to the weather system moving over the province today and also with future events.»
