Publishing a game forecast
Moments · Tonight's game from the board: the field with the wind, the board's rating, and your call beside it.
The weather
How much
Your note
What opens
Every game on the board has a "Publish your forecast" link. It opens your forecast already filled: the park or stadium drawn to scale and oriented to true north, the wind across it from the National Weather Service forecast at first pitch, gusts from HRRR, and the board's rating in words - "Suppresses scoring, notably" - with the reason.
That is the seed. It is kept with your forecast as it was when you opened it, so the page can always show what the board said and what you said.
What you add, in order
The weather - suppresses scoring, calm or favours scoring, then how much: slightly, notably, strongly. Two taps.
Rain - no risk, a possible delay or a likely one.
Your note - up to a few sentences. What are you seeing that the board is not: the model, the timing, the mechanism.
Nothing else is asked. There is no total, no line and no pick; the note is analysis, and anything that reads as a pick is held.
When it locks
At first pitch, or kickoff for an NFL game. You can edit until then from the forecast page. After that the forecast is what it was, which is the point of publishing before the game.
The mark
Beside your call the page shows one of four marks against the board: agrees, stronger, softer or differs. Same words on every kind of forecast, so a reader who learns them on a game page does not relearn them on a storm page.
Where it appears
On the game's own page, next to the board's read, for the readers who came for tonight's game; on your page, under your name; and in the email your followers get when you publish. The share image carries the field.