As Hurricane Dorian continues to make its way upward from the Bahamas, President Donald Trump is getting bashed for showing a doctored forecast after his previous mixup claiming that Alabama would be one of the states effected by it. In a tweet, Trump wrote, “In addition to Florida – South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated. Looking like one of the largest hurricanes ever. Already category 5. BE CAREFUL! GOD BLESS EVERYONE!” This prompted the Birmingham, Alabama, office of the NWS to issue a statement explaining, “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east.”
Later, Trump shared a poster of the NWS’ projection for the hurricane, but it had a black line extended out around the bottom part of Alabama that did not exist in the original projection map.
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Meteorologist Ryan Brenton was one of many individuals who noticed this and addressed it on Twitter, tweeting out a photo of Trump’s image along with the original, undoctored version.
Can’t let this go unnoticed. @realDonaldTrump displayed a doctored version of the @NHC_Atlantic forecast for #Dorian.
The black extension past Florida did not exist; that’s not how forecast cones are drawn. pic.twitter.com/GqHikOBYU6
— Ryan Breton (@RyanBretonWX) September 4, 2019
Weather expert Dennis Mersereau also pointed out the false report from the U.S. President, writing, “The President of the United States altered a National Hurricane Center map with a sharpie to falsely extend the official forecast toward Alabama so he didn’t have to admit he was wrong in a tweet.”
He went on to note that, according to Cornell Law School, is is against the law to falsify a NWS forecast for the purpose of reporting it as “official.”
It is a violation of federal law to falsify a National Weather Service forecast and pass it off as official, as President Trump did here.
18 U.S. Code § 2074: https://t.co/jvROnpSJLI pic.twitter.com/TnIuvZRJoS
— Dennis Mersereau (@wxdam) September 4, 2019
Specifically, the institution cites the law as stating, “Whoever knowingly issues or publishes any counterfeit weather forecast or warning of weather conditions falsely representing such forecast or warning to have been issued or published by the Weather Bureau, United States Signal Service, or other branch of the Government service, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ninety days, or both.”
Photo Credit: Getty Images
