A meteorologist based in Washington, D.C., was accused of helping the government cover up manipulating a hurricane. In Houston, a forecaster was repeatedly told to “do research” into the weather’s supposed nefarious origins. And a meteorologist for a television station in Lansing, Michigan, said she had received death threats.
“Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes,” wrote the forecaster in Michigan, Katie Nickolaou, in a social media post. “I can’t believe I just had to type that.”
Meteorologists’ role of delivering lifesaving weather forecasts and explaining climate science sometimes makes them targets for harassment, and this kind of abuse has been happening for years, weather experts said. But amid the conspiracy theories and falsehoods that have spiraled online after hurricanes Helene and Milton, they say the attacks and threats directed at them have reached new heights.
“We’re all talking about how much more it’s ramped up,” said Marshall Shepherd, who is the director of the University of Georgia’s Atmospheric Sciences Program and a former president of the American Meteorological Society. There has been “a palpable difference in tone and aggression toward people in my field,” he said.
Shepherd said the scrutiny meteorologists face is sharply amplified during major weather events, and the back-to-back hurricanes, combined with the political climate and second-guessing of weather experts, may have created conditions ripe for abuse.
Helene made landfall as a Category 4 storm on Florida’s Gulf Coast in late September, tearing through the Southeast and becoming the deadliest storm to hit the U.S. mainland in nearly two decades. Just two weeks later, Milton rapidly strengthened and struck Florida as a Category 3 storm, resulting in at least 14 deaths, serious flooding and the destruction of scores of homes.
Emergency workers have also been targeted with abuse. In the aftermath of Helene, Federal Emergency Management Agency personnel received a significant amount of harassment, including false claims that the agency was stealing donations and diverting disaster aid to Ukraine. Calls were made for residents to form militias to defend against those workers, who also faced antisemitic and misogynistic threats.
The agency’s administrator, Deanne Criswell, told ABC in early October that the rhetoric was “demoralizing” and had created “fear in our own employees.” She added in another interview that the disinformation was hampering relief efforts.
In a statement Sunday, FEMA said it had made some “operational adjustments” for the safety of its staff and storm survivors.
“Disaster recovery centers will continue to be open as scheduled, survivors continue to register for assistance, and we continue to help the people of North Carolina with their recovery,” the statement said.
Many of the falsehoods about the hurricanes have been spread by conservatives and supporters of former President Donald Trump, including a former Trump administration official and a Republican member of Congress.
Of all the conspiracy theories and disinformation that have circulated, meteorologists say one falsehood that has especially gotten out of hand is the claim that the government is creating or controlling the storms. Forecasters have been harassed for either failing to promote these claims or for disseminating accurate information that counters them.
Matthew Cappucci, a D.C.-based meteorologist for MyRadar and The Washington Post, said he received hundreds of comments and dozens of messages during the storms about how the government had modified the weather and that accused him of helping cover it up. He said that the threats were “exasperating” at a time when he was working around the clock to track the hurricanes.
“Part of me wanted to say, ‘If you don’t trust my warnings, then stay in place,’” he said. “‘Just sit there and see what happens.’”
Shepherd said that such false claims about outside forces controlling the weather have always existed, recalling how similar assertions emerged during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. “The difference is that they were always out there in ‘fringe-world,’ but now I’ve seen them become almost mainstream,” he said.
During an interview on CNN as Milton approached Florida, a reporter asked Shepherd whether the storm was manipulated by people, referring to a person he had just spoken to on the street who had made that claim. “It’s stunning that the reporter had to ask that question,” Shepherd said.
The abuse directed at meteorologists can have serious consequences, they said, eroding trust in them when they issue critical warnings, in addition to taking a personal toll on them.
In summer 2023, Chris Gloninger, the chief meteorologist of a television news station in Iowa, left his job after he received a string of harassing messages — including a death threat — for his on-air discussions of climate change. He began incorporating the topic into his forecasts after being stunned by Hurricane Sandy.
Matt Lanza, a Houston-based meteorologist and editor at The Eyewall, a publication covering Atlantic storms, said responding to disinformation takes time away from explaining what people should expect during the storm.
Since Helene, he said the harassment he has received has “reached a new stratosphere,” and he’s concerned that the industry will start losing meteorologists if it continues.
“Nothing good comes of this,” he said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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