This video does not show Hurricane Milton “about to hit the coasts of Florida”: they are rough clouds

After Hurricane Helena passed through the southeastern United States at the end of September, Florida is preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Milton, estimated for this Wednesday night. In this context, users on networks have since Monday spread a 15-second video that, supposedly, would show Milton “about to impact the coasts of Florida.”

The video would have been recorded on a beach in Florida on October 7 and has ambient sound. During the first ten seconds the wind is heard on the coast, while gray clouds of unusual shapes are observed over the sea. In the posts, users claim that it is the “gigantic and powerful Hurricane Milton.”

Other users also claim that both Milton and Helena were created by the American High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). This type of publication states that “HAARP has the ability to modify the electromagnetic field and destroy entire nations on Earth,” so this hurricane “is neither natural nor normal.”

The publications that include this video have sometimes exceeded 2 million views on X. Thousands of users have interacted with the clip, sharing it on other networks such as YouTube and TikTok.

However, the viral clip is not related to Hurricane Milton nor does it show a natural phenomenon of that magnitude. Furthermore, HAARP cannot create these types of weather phenomena, as explained Checked in this article. Actually, HAARP It is a project that studies the ionospherethat is, the outermost layer of the atmosphere, and does not affect the inner layers, in which this type of phenomena occur.

This video does not show Hurricane Milton “about to hit the coast of Florida”

We make a reverse search of the clip, which led us to a article published by the British media Daily Star on June 27, 2021. In the note, which includes a still from the viral video, they explain that “Andrew Farnam was planning to sunbathe at Fort Walton Beach in Florida on Monday (June 21) and was surprised when he saw the dark clouds that They hovered over the sea.” According to the article, Farnam posted the video on his Facebook profile and it quickly went viral.

With that information, we conducted a Facebook search for the video. In this way, we found Farnam’s post, which was made on June 21. In the description, the user indicates that “Mother Nature got wild this morning!” He later edited the post to add the location where he took the video, as seen below.

Days later, his video was republished on networks such as X, formerly Twitter, instagram and reddit by users who stated that the phenomenon seen is “rough clouds.” Among those who spread the clip with this description is the site specialized in meteorological information, Meteoredwho spread it in YouTube and Facebook.

Therefore, the viral video is not related to Milton, since not only is it an old clip, but said hurricane has not yet reached the coasts of Florida.

What are rough clouds?

According to the International Cloud Atlas of the World Meteorological Organization, these are:

“Well-defined wave-shaped structures at the bottom of the cloud, more chaotic and with less horizontal organization than the undulatus variety. This feature is characterized by the existence of localized waves at the base of the cloud, which can be smooth or mottled with smaller elements that sometimes descend abruptly, as if the surface of a raging sea were observed from below. . “Different degrees of illumination and cloud thickness can lead to spectacular visual effects.”

In an article dedicated to this type of cloud, Meteored states that “although they can be seen in calm conditions, rough clouds are most frequently associated with convective storm activity, and it is clear that unstable atmospheric conditions are needed for them to occur. arise. Although they can be seen near storm clouds, they do not produce precipitation, although they sometimes appear dark and storm-like.”

On your websitethe United States National Weather Service indicated that asperite clouds are “a rare, recently recognized cloud formation that was proposed in 2009 as the first cloud formation added since Cirrus Intortus in 1951 to the Organization’s International Cloud Atlas. World Meteorology”. This section compiles several examples of rough clouds captured in June 2010, which have a shape similar to those in the viral clip.

By fragmenting the video with the INVID tool, the frame analysis showed verifications carried out in the year 2022 by means such as Bad Thorn, AFP Factual, Newtral and AFP FactCheck. On that occasion, users claimed that the video was a close-up view of the “eye of Hurricane Ian.”

Therefore, we rate viral posts as fake. In reality, the video has no relation to Hurricane Milton nor to this type of natural phenomena. The clip actually shows rough clouds that formed in June 2021.

[Este artículo es parte de la alianza periodística de verificación entre Mala Espina, de Chile, y Voz de América. Para saber más sobre la metodología utilizada en los chequeos, puedes ingresar a este enlace.]

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