Maybe 50%

How reliable are the Snopes Urban Legend Reference Pages? Judging from Andrew Bolt's recent behaviour, his answer would be no more than 50%. It all depends on the topic.

If the topic is a little cockle-warmer about a young girl receiving a reply from a "special angel" after sending a letter to God about the death of her beloved dog, and Snopes confirms the truth of the story, then you take Snopes' word for it. If the topic is global warming, and a photograph of deep snow from "near New York right now" (emphasis added) which (according to Snopes) is actually a photograph of Canadian snow taken in 2004, then maybe you don't put so much trust in the Snopes version of the truth - you just put up a snarky update:

UPDATE

Readers say the above image sent by Janek was from Japan, or Canada, or somewhere else not enjoying Adelaide’s bit of heat.

But for those wanting a newer picture, here’s one of the Ottawa garages crushed by Canada’s huge snows...

Well, maybe. The official story on the Ottawa garage that collapsed takes up just one paragraph of this Canada.com report:

Ottawa fire Platoon Chief Paul Whitney said the cause of the collapse had not been determined, but noted that the garage was covered by snow.

As far as I can tell from my quick Google news search, there was only the one Ottawa garage that collapsed. A number of neighbouring buildings were evacuated - a sensible precaution, no doubt. Interesting how that one garage became one of several in Bolt's description of the photograph.

So what's the truth here. Well, maybe it doesn't matter - there might be higher considerations involved.

(Hat tip to Nexus 6).