Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Climate

Misinformation Is Already Swirling Around Hurricane Milton

And it’s make a life-threatening situation even more dangerous.

Hurricanes and misinformation.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The “Meteorologists” Facebook page has 51,000 followers, an iffy grasp of grammar rules, and outsized confidence in the United States’ weather engineering capabilities. “They are Aiming this KILLER Monster Hurricane Right at FLORIDA!” one user said of Hurricane Milton on Sunday morning, shortly before sharing purported photos of dinosaurs living on Mars.

By Monday afternoon, Milton had strengthened into a Category 5 storm, and the internet conspiracies were intensifying, too. People shared videos of themselves asking their Alexas, “What kind of hurricane was Hurricane Milton?” and getting answers in the past tense — proof, surely, that the government orchestrated the whole storm. “Never ever seen a hurricane form in the western Gulf and head directly EAST… It is not right,” other users mused in the comment sections of their local weather channels. A search for “cloud seeding” on Facebook further turned up dozens of posts tracking flight paths for planes belonging to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and sharing photos of ominous-looking clouds as evidence that the “government is involved.”

Hoaxes and misinformation reliably follow extreme weather events. Pictures of Hurricane Shark have circulated on social media after pretty much every major flood since 2011, and a photoshopped image of a storm cell over the Statue of Liberty resurfaces anytime there is bad weather in New York. In the aftermath of a major disaster, it’s especially tempting for bad actors to exploit the desperation for news and images.

But Hurricane Helene — which devastated swaths of Florida up into the Appalachians just over a week ago — revealed how far this has spun out of control. For one thing, hoaxes are simpler than ever for the average person to disseminate, thanks to the availability of AI image-making tools and the degradation of content moderation on disaster-response platforms like Twitter. These conspiracies may also then be reinforced and amplified by people with an interest in making the government’s response look bad — such as the Republican candidate for president of the United States, a Georgia congressperson, and Elon Musk.

While some lies — like Deep State cloud seeding — are relatively easy to see through, many rumors are much more difficult to fact-check when power, cell service, and internet are limited. Nicole McNeill, the Asheville, North Carolina-based director of storytelling of Climate Power, told me she and many of her neighbors fell for a widespread rumor that a second storm was going to hit the western part of the state immediately after Helene. The panic the rumor sparked risked lives: She saw a fight break out in a gas line between two men who were frantically trying to get out of town, and a young couple who were renting a home nearby tried to flee and ended up on a road that was closed. “We heard later that people had to sleep in their cars,” McNeill told me. “Local police had to be diverted from emergency response to direct traffic to clear the roads so emergency vehicles could pass. Misinformation made a desperate situation worse.” McNeill herself suffered a panic attack while trying to fix the holes in her roof from trees that had fallen during Helene, all in preparation for the second storm that would never come.

While there was no merit to those manufactured claims, the truth is in some ways even more alarming: Milton is looking like a worst-case scenario storm as it bears down on Tampa Bay, and at this point, the only thing anyone can control is getting good information to the people whose lives will depend on hearing it. Forecasters are doing a great job of that already, like South Florida hurricane specialist John Morales, who let his emotions show on air and connected the storm’s intensification to climate science.

Milton isn’t due to make landfall until Wednesday, but the misinformation already circulating online will make it more challenging for early warnings from the government and local experts to be heard and trusted. That job doesn’t get any easier after a storm. To fellow hurricane survivors, McNeill warned, “If you have patchy internet and you’re at 30% battery and worried about your phone running out, you’re often making split-second decisions. That’s where misinformation gets people.”

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Climate

AM Briefing: NEPA Takes a Hit

On the environmental reviews, Microsoft’s emissions, and solar on farmland

NEPA Takes a Hit From the Supreme Court
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Enormous wildfires in Manitoba, Canada, will send smoke into the Midwestern U.S. and Great Plains this weekend • Northwest England is officially experiencing a drought after receiving its third lowest rainfall since 1871 • Thunderstorms are brewing in Washington, D.C., where the Federal Court of Appeals paused an earlier ruling throwing out much of Trump’s tariff agenda.

THE TOP FIVE

1. NEPA takes a hit

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that courts should show more deference to agencies when hearing lawsuits over environmental reviews.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Q&A

How Are Renewable Energy Developers Reacting to IRA Cuts?

A conversation with Mike Hall of Anza.

The Fight's Q&A subject.
Heatmap Illustration

This week’s conversation is with Mike Hall, CEO of the solar and battery storage data company Anza. I rang him because, in my book, the more insights into the ways renewables companies are responding to the war on the Inflation Reduction Act, the better.

The following chat was lightly edited for clarity. Let’s jump in!

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Hotspots

A Solar Flare-Up in New York, Battery Aftershocks in California

And more of the week’s top news in renewable energy conflicts.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Columbia County, New York – A Hecate Energy solar project in upstate New York blessed by Governor Kathy Hochul is now getting local blowback.

  • Last week, the Hochul administration granted many solar projects their renewable energy certificates, including Hecate’s Shepherd’s Run solar project in the town of Copake. Shepherd’s Run has struggled for years with its application process and was previously rejected by state land use regulators.
  • This certificate award has now inflamed longstanding local criticism of the project, which has persisted due to its proximity to schools and concerns about fire risk.
  • We’ll find out whether this flare-up will cause more headaches when the state’s Renewable Energy Siting office completes reviewing Hecate’s application in 60 days.

2. Sussex County, Delaware – The battle between a Bethany Beach landowner and a major offshore wind project came to a head earlier this week after Delaware regulators decided to comply with a massive government records request.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow