"I did a little searching for weather history on the day of the Cherry Blossom parade and assumed that the writer was referring to the 2006 parade, which occurred on 10:00AM, Saturday the 8th of April."
And were you here in Washington that day? I was. I could barely see through the windshield with wipers going full tilt as I was driving my brother-in-law and his daughter to Union Station. We remarked on how sorry we felt for the parade participants. The ride home on 395 was pretty treacherous in the heavy rain.
So.... were you here? She does get that part of the story right, I can attest, whatever the problems are with the rest of her article.
I actually was not there, but I was not far. I live in Northern Virginia, but frequently the way the storm cells travel through our area we can see a deluge in one area and a few drops in another, even between close areas.
I was throwing that out as one item that stuck out of many things which raised suspicion to me and I was basing it on the data I researched. If it's a simple be a case of GIGO[1], then I welcome any FR members to add a correction.
[1]Garbage In Garbage Out
I was. Well, we were at the festival on 4/09, anyway, but I can confirm your account of the weather on Saturday the 8'th - it was quite nasty that day, with tornado warnings and heavy rain and the whole nine yards, as I recall. It made the final day of the festival on the 9'th a bit of a disappointment - virtually all the trees had been stripped of their blossoms by the wind and rain the day before, so the last day of the cherry blossom festival was extremely short on actual cherry blossoms ;)
Just figured I'd add to the eyewitness accounts :^)