spoiler
Meteorologists tracking the advance of Hurricane Milton have been targeted by a deluge of conspiracy theories that they were controlling the weather, abuse and even death threats, amid what they say is an unprecedented surge in misinformation as two major hurricanes have hit the US.
A series of falsehoods and threats have swirled in the two weeks since Hurricane Helene tore through six states causing several hundred deaths, followed by Milton crashing into Florida on Wednesday.
The extent of the misinformation, which has been stoked by Donald Trump and his followers, has been such that it has stymied the ability to help hurricane-hit communities, according to the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).
Katie Nickolaou, a Michigan-based meteorologist, said that she and her colleagues have borne the brunt of much of these conspiracies, having received messages claiming there are category 6 hurricanes (there aren’t), that meteorologists or the government are creating and directing hurricanes (they aren’t) and even that scientists should be killed and radar equipment be demolished.
“I’ve never seen a storm garner so much misinformation, we have just been putting out fires of wrong information everywhere,” Nickolaou said.
“I have had a bunch of people saying I created and steered the hurricane, there are people assuming we control the weather. I have had to point out that a hurricane has the energy of 10,000 nuclear bombs and we can’t hope to control that. But it’s taken a turn to more violent rhetoric, especially with people saying those who created Milton should be killed.”
One post aimed at Nickolaou said: “Stop the breathing of those that made them and their affiliates.” She responded: “Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes. I can’t believe I just had to type that.”
“People have called me a plethora of curse words, people telling me to shut up and sit down, people who think it’s OK to take out Doppler radar because they think it is controlling the weather,” Nickolaou said. “It is eating up a lot of work and free time to deal with all of this. It’s very tiring.”
A wide range of misinformation has been spread as Helene and then Milton gathered pace in the Gulf of Mexico, such as claims spread by Trump that Fema had run out of cash for hurricane survivors because it has been given to illegal immigrants. Violent threats have also become common, with posts across TikTok, Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter), alleging that Fema workers should be beaten or “arrested or shot or hung on sight”.
More outlandishly, several of Trump’s closest allies have baselessly asserted that the federal government is somehow controlling hurricanes. “Hurricane Helene was an ATTACK caused by Weather Manipulation,” claimed a video shared by Michael Flynn, a former national security advisor to Trump.
“Yes they can control the weather,” Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right congresswoman, wrote on X last week. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”
This steep rise in falsehoods has drawn a sharp response from Joe Biden, who has blamed Trump for an “onslaught of lies” and told the former president to “get a life.”
“It’s beyond ridiculous,” Biden said of the claims being made around weather control. “It’s so stupid. It’s got to stop.”
Although humans can worsen hurricanes by burning fossil fuels, creating a hotter ocean and atmosphere that gives hurricanes more energy, they cannot create, control or steer individual storms. Also, Fema’s disaster relief fund for hurricane-hit communities is separate from and unaffected by the money spent on giving shelter to migrants.
But for meteorologists, the experiences around Helene and Milton are just an extreme continuation of a trend where the public is increasingly getting its information from extremist figures online rather than experts, according to Chris Gloninger, a former TV meteorologist and climate scientist who faced threats for talking about the climate crisis during his forecasts.
“The modern Republican party has an army of people who are on social media with huge followings who just disseminate this misinformation,” Gloninger said. “I’m seeing my former colleagues getting threats, I’m getting messages that we are steering hurricanes into red states. It’s mindblowing, I’ve never seen anything like this in any disaster.”
Gloninger said that meteorologists are “going to reach a point of burnout. What other profession are people targeted for simply doing their job? All we are trying to do is protect life and property during extreme weather.”
Arm the meteorologists.