Was this year’s strongest hurricane Milton really artificial?

“Sending Armageddon”

Milton raged all week from October 5th to the 12th. An extremely powerful and devastating tropical cyclone (the strongest world this year) became the second most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded over the Gulf of Mexico, behind only Hurricane Rita in 2005. in September.

The second Category 5 hurricane of the year hit Florida’s west coast less than two weeks after Helene, which strengthened to a Category 4.

Category 5 Milton stayed for more than 29 hours. The maximum wind speed was 285 km/h or 79 m/s. The disaster claimed 28 lives, and the damage caused is estimated at at least 30 billion. US dollars.

It’s possible that these facts — Milton’s strength and formation shortly after another major hurricane — have fueled speculation among netizens that it was artificially created.

It is positive in the videoby which shared one Facebook user from Lithuania. Various users of the social network “X” also claimed similarly.

One of them is from the extreme right and antisemitic opinionated internet personality, commentator, white supremacist, conspiracy theorist and misinformation (especially about COVID-19) distributor Stew Petersas.

While Milton was still snorting, he statedthat “a hurricane is a purposefully geoengineered storm used as a weapon.”

“Only four storms in history have followed a similar path. NONE was a serious hurricane, most of them originated in the 19th century, explained the internet user. “Hurricanes don’t form in the western Gulf of Mexico and they don’t move east in a straight line to Florida.”

This post by S. Peters has already been viewed 2.5 million times. times. After other X users flagged this as false information, he doubtedor really

Another X user on the same day repeating the same phrase about the gun, statedthat it is “much more than cloud seeding” and that “they are sending absolute Armageddon to Florida”.

A day earlier, another X user shared a video of unusual-looking clouds, inquiredwhether they look natural to others. He mentioned not only geoengineering, but also a specific project – HAARP.

Also read: With Hurricane Milton, a wave of disinformation also fell: what did Internet users come up with?

“They’ve got goddamn weather weapons aimed at us,” a netizen claimed, garnering 1 million likes. views.

These considerations and conclusions are wrong. It is easy to back this up with scientific information.

They didn’t make a hurricane out of Alaska

Conspiracy theorists have long explained that the High Frequency Active Aurora Research Program High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program or HAARP) is used to alter the weather, cause hurricanes, droughts, earthquakes, floods, even human consciousness.

Also read: Are the northern lights really created by a powerful laser operating in Alaska?

Also read: The liars did not have to wait long: they “found” the cause of the earthquakes in Alaska

In fact, this program is an attempt by scientists from all over the world to study the properties and behavior of the ionosphere (the upper layer of the atmosphere, located 50-965 km above the Earth’s surface).

HAARP has nothing to do with Florida. Its research is conducted from the Gakona area in the state of Alaska, so it is not true that the program could have been used to create a hurricane.

The scientist frowned

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) as early as September 26. (just as Helene reached Florida that day) noticed a possible the beginning of a hurricane in the western Caribbean. A wide area of ​​low pressure formed there, causing scattered showers and thunderstorms. After a couple of days, a low pressure area formed without a closed contour.

After that, the element changed quickly. Meteorologists began to change its descriptions to increasingly stronger ones. Another developing area of ​​low pressure over the central part of the United States “steered” the tropical storm deep into the Gulf of Mexico. At this stage, Milton’s winds were only 56km radius – that was in comparison a small storm.

On the afternoon of October 6, the elements are already here strengthened to a hurricane. During the night, Milton exploded to become a major hurricane and a Category 5 hurricane in the afternoon. This was due to extremely favorable environmental conditions: unusually warm sea ​​surface (nearly 31 °C or 1-2 °C warmer than average), high relative humidity and little wind shear.

Minimum central pressure in 24 hours decreased from 981 minibars to 897 minibars (one scientist this rate called crazyto another this information took away the promise and destroyed it), and the wind speed increased by 40 m/s. It was the fastest hurricane intensification ever seen in the Gulf of Mexico and the third fastest in the Atlantic Ocean overall.

Milton made landfall on the Florida peninsula on October 10. around 8:30 p.m. local time as a Category 3 hurricane. It still wasn’t good news, with winds gusting to 54 m/s (up from 79 m/s two days earlier, which is unusual for October hurricanes). On land, the element began to weaken rapidly and reached the Atlantic Ocean reduced to Category 1.

Climate change also had an impact

Milton was the latest element in the strangest storm season scientists have ever seen. According to PBS, even before the start of the Atlantic hurricane season, forecasters predicted working year.

And so it was – already the first one, formed at the end of June Berylswas the earliest storm to reach Category 5. Instead, from August 20 – the traditional beginning of the strongest hurricane season – until September 23. was unusually quiet, marveled Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

And then until October 6. there were five hurricanes (the previous record was just two). October 6-7 three hurricanes raged at the same time, which had never happened before.

According to Climate Central, an independent group of scientists and communicators, the unusually high sea surface temperatures that caused the hurricane to rapidly strengthen, determined climate change.

Scientists from „World Weather Attribution“ (groups that analyze the effects of climate change on weather phenomena) estimate that these changes cause 20-30 percent of the precipitation in one rainy day (for example, during a hurricane). more precipitation.

Helene’s analysis showedthat as a result of climate change, the total amount of precipitation increased by a tenth, and the wind speed of the hurricane was 11 percent. bigger. Statistical modeling allowed us to calculate that the continent could have been reached by Milton being a Category 2 instead of a Category 3 hurricaneif not climate change.

Hurricanes approach the United States in a similar way: tropical storms formed off the west coast of Africa cross the Atlantic Ocean and strengthen after entering the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea.

Fact-checking website Science Feedback denied quoted S. Peters’ words, hurricanes do not form in the western part of the Gulf of Mexico and only four storms followed a path similar to Milton’s. It “ignores the many other tropical storms that formed in the same region and took similar paths, but hit other locations along Florida’s long coast.”

User X posted a map produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that clearly shows the paths of four tropical storms (three from the 19th century) from the western Gulf to Tampa Bay.

His interpretation was wrong – there was more than one hurricane that formed in a different place, moved in a slightly different path or hit Florida in a different place.

But not one hurricane in recent years was moving in a similar way to Milton’s.

Storms in the Gulf of Mexico are not uncommon. According to the US National Weather Service, tropical storms can form over waters with a temperature of at least 26°C. If the water is warm enough, the air above it is moist enough, the wind conditions are right, and a low-pressure air mass moves through, it can develop into a tropical storm vortex. If the storm persists longer, it may intensify.

Most tropical storms that affect North America form in the tropical latitudes of the Atlantic Ocean, which meet all of these conditions and are excellent hurricane incubators.

But tropical storms can also develop in the western part of the Gulf of Mexico. This year alone, two tropical storms occurred here: Chriswhich turned toward the Mexican state of Veracruz, and the hurricane Francinewhich swept Louisiana.

It is impossible to neither create nor weaken

There is no reasonable evidence that a hurricane of this size and power can be artificially created. How noted According to Britain’s public broadcaster, the BBC, there is no technology that allows humans to create and control hurricanes.

“Based on current knowledge and technology, there is no way to use geoengineering to modify hurricanes,” Suzana Camargo of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory told his portal.

Hurricane meteorologists told Reuters news agency, too confirmedthat hurricane modification is simply not possible due to the size and power of the storms.

Whirlwind (in North America it’s called a tornado) is a strongly rotating column of air, one end of which rests on the ground and the other on hail balls, in rare cases, ball clouds.

Tornadoes is formedwhen a vortex – a rotating column of air – appears during a storm. As it fluctuates, hot air rises and cold air is pushed down. As the vortex fills with water vapor, a funnel-shaped cloud appears. It touches the ground, the speed of the vortex increases.

Also read: Hundreds believed: the tornado in Wuhan did not destroy the laboratory that allegedly created COVID-19

To better understand the mechanism of formation of tornadoes, scientists them models theoretically and conducts experimentscreating smaller models of them in laboratories. But it is impossible to create huge hurricanes and scientists have not confirmedthat it did.

Florida-based NOAA on Dec. 7-8 of the last century. carried out the project STORMFURYin which experimented with hurricane cloud seeding in hopes of reducing hurricane force winds. Ultimately, they concluded that the size and power of the hurricane caused this process impossible.

15min Verdict: Lie. There is no reasonable evidence that a hurricane of the size and power of Milton could have been artificially created. It was formed due to favorable weather conditions, which were also influenced by climate change.

The publication was prepared in 15 minutes in partnership with Metait aims to stop the spread of misleading news on the social network. More about the program and its rules – here.