After ripping through Florida, Hurricane Milton – the second-most powerful tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico – has moved into the Atlantic Ocean.
At the time of writing, the death toll from the hurricane stands at 16, with the storm’s maximum sustained winds of 120mph and flooding leaving a trail of destruction and at least three million people without power.
Despite the hurricane’s widely reported effects, a growing number of conspiracy theorists have been spreading misinformation about the legitimacy of the hurricane’s origins, impact, and rescue efforts online.
Here is a roundup of the most prominent false claims surrounding Hurricane Milton.
What are the false claims?
The government has manipulated the weather
Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed on social media that the US government “can control the weather”. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done,” she continued.
Despite it being impossible for the government to generate a hurricane, Ms Greene has doubled down on her suggestion after receiving a wave of backlash, publishing screenshots of “weather modification project reports” to her X account.
US President Joe Biden responded to Ms Greene’s claims: “It’s beyond ridiculous. It’s so stupid. It’s got to stop,” he told reporters at the White House.
Humans have engineered the hurricane by cloud seeding
Cloud seeding is a weather modification technique which aims to alter a cloud’s ability to produce snow and rain. It can be done by using aircraft to introduce “ice nuclei” to particular types of clouds.
The reports that Ms Greene referenced online were from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The organisation experimented with the technique in the ’60s and ’80s in an attempt to reduce the strength of winds; however, the experiment did not work.
Similar theories of cloud seeding arose when Dubai flooded in April. The UAE has said that it has used the technique in the past to try to address water shortages in the country.
Speaking with the BBC, Jill Trepanier, an extreme weather expert at Louisiana State University, said that cloud seeding would not have been used in this instance.
She explained that cloud seeding is needed when there are not enough aerosols or water vapour within the atmosphere for condensation to occur. “Over the western Gulf of Mexico and the Bay of Campeche, that is not a problem. The Earth will make a hurricane all on its own,” she said.
Hurricane relief funds are being spent on migrants
Another conspiracy theory that has spread online since Hurricane Helene – a smaller hurricane that hit Florida and Georgia at the end of September – is that government money set aside for natural disasters has been spent on illegal migrants.
These claims have been amplified by former president Donald Trump, who has claimed that his opponent in the presidential race, Kamala Harris, “spent all her Fema money – billions of dollars – on housing for illegal migrants”. Fema stands for the Federal Emergency Agency, which is a government agency that holds a disaster-relief fund meant for natural disasters.
Fema has brandished Trump’s claims as “false” and stated that “no money is being diverted from disaster response needs”. It has also published a fact-checking page on its website.
AI-generated images
With the devastation caused by the hurricane heavily reported on, artificially created images depicting Disney World Orlando submerged underwater have been spread on social media by a number of accounts, including a Russian news agency.
While Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando, and Sea World have closed due to the hurricane, there have been no reports of flooding.
