“Ten inches of snow on Sunday,” Channel 12 weatherman Tony Petrarca announced.

There were no grasps from his audience. They didn’t believe Petrarca who has accurately forecasted events from a light afternoon sprinkle to a blizzard in this 35-year career at the station where he started as an intern. People count on his forecasts, plan their days on what he has to say.

Petrarca wasn’t surprised or offended no one was taking 10 inches of snow seriously. He laughed. After all in opening remarks to the Warwick Rotary Club Thursday at Chelo’s Restaurant, Petrarca said there was the chance of a dusting Sunday and nothing like 10 inches.

It was snow – a lot of snow – that fascinated Petrarca as a student at Winman Junior High. It was February 6, 1978. It was a Monday morning that started off sunny with a forecast of snow beginning that afternoon. Schools were open. People went to work, however by that afternoon with the wind and heavily falling snow this was the prelude to a blizzard. The state was in “gridlock” by 6 p.m., said Petrarca. It was the Blizzard of 1978 that dumped a record 38 inches on Woonsocket and three feet in some parts of Warwick. While snow was forecast for Feb. 6, the volume and accompanying wind was a surprise. The blizzard virtually brought Rhode Island to a standstill for a week.

Petrarca recounted the blizzard, saying he still has a copy of the 1978 commemorative blizzard edition the Beacon published once it dug out and city and state crews with the help of the National Guard opened major roads.

Petrarca was fascinated by weather. He went on to graduate from Toll Gate High School and then Lyndon State College in Lyndonville, VT, where he earned a B.S. Degree in meteorology. Being in his home town, Petrarca knew many in his audience.

“It felt like family when I walked in,” he said, “and then 10 minutes later they were beating me,” which he implied also made it feel like family.

Petrarca said technology has enabled forecasters to do a much better job, citing how numerical models have enhanced long range forecasts. “I give them a lot of credit,” he said of models. Yet the job takes more than reciting current conditions and with calculations providing short and long range forecasts. Petrarca’s typical day starts at 4:30 a.m. in preparation for the morning broadcast.  He’s back at the station at 1 p.m. and the day doesn’t usually come to a close until 9 p.m.

The weather is constantly changing and Petrarca likes it that way.

“We get it all,” he said running down a list from heat waves to hurricanes and even an occasional tornado.  Being a weatherman in Arizona, he surmised would be pretty boring.

Petrarca asked, what was the last Category 3 hurricane to hit the state?

“Carol,” came the answer from the audience. Carol slammed the state in 1954, although it didn’t leave the trail of devastation of the 1938 Hurricane.

With wind gusts of 160 miles per hour the 1938 storm hit the Connecticut coast putting Rhode Island in the path of winds driving the water into Narragansett Bay, which because of its geographical configuration squeezed it up the bay toward Warwick, Conimicut and onward to Providence.

“The storm surge is like a liquid bulldozer,” said Petrarca. In the wake of Hurricane Carol the Army Corps of Engineers built the hurricane barriers to protect Providence.

Petrarca didn’t get asked if this was going to be a snowy winter or if we could expect a drought this coming summer. Rather, questions focused on what his job is like and situations he’s found himself in.

“Snow storm are the most stressful to predict,” he said explaining that accumulations can differ dramatically within relatively short distances because of  elevation and the impact of warmer air coming off the ocean and Narragansett Bay.

Petrarca hears it when Mother Nature decides to march to a different drummer, too.

“When you blow a forecast, they let you know about it,” he said.

Petrarca also was asked why we don’t get a lot of hail. He explained that a warmer bay has an effect. He said it can be a sunny day with temperatures in the 80s when a thunderstorm develops freezing droplets of water into ice chunks at temperatures of minus 25 degrees at higher levels. Such storms deliver hail in areas of the country far from the coast. Here, however, warm air off the bay and ocean can change what would have been hail in the mid-west to rain.