Kansas tornado footage misrepresented as Hurricane Idalia winds

This article is more than one year old.
Published on August 31, 2023 at 22:29
3 min read
By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA

Social media users are claiming a video shows a tornado barreling through the US state of Florida as Hurricane Idalia made landfall in August 2023. This is false; the footage dates to 2022 and shows a twister that battered Andover, Kansas.

"Category 4 Hurricane Idalia makes landfall in Florida bringing waves 12ft, tornado - hope it passes quickly," says an August 30 post sharing the clip on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Screenshot from X, formerly known as Twitter, taken August 31, 2023

Similar posts spread in multiple languages across the site.

The video, which shows a tornado whirling across an open field and through a white fence, spread online after Idalia struck Florida's marshy, sparsely populated Big Bend region as a Category 3 hurricane on August 30. The storm weakened to a Category 1 and eventually a tropical storm with winds of 60 miles per hour as it raked over Georgia and into South Carolina.

Hurricanes can spawn twisters, and Idalia triggered tornado watches across several coastal US states. The National Weather Service's (NWS) preliminary local storm report for southeast Georgia and South Carolina (archived here) lists several possible tornadoes, including one weak twister that flipped a car in South Carolina.

But the clip circulating online predates Idalia by more than a year -- reverse image searches reveal it was captured in Andover, Kansas on April 29, 2022.

The footage, credited to Andover resident Taylor Train, appeared in reports from local TV stations KWCH and KAKE, with the latter also posting it to social media (archived here, here, here and here).

A GoFundMe was set up for Train's family after the storm damaged their home. The tornado injured three people and registered peak winds of 155 miles per hour, according to the NWS (archived here).

AFP geolocated the video to Andover; the fences and structures in the distance match those in images from Google Maps Street View (archived here and here).

Screenshot from X taken August 31, 2023, with elements outlined by AFP

Screenshots from Google Maps Street View taken August 31, 2023, with elements outlined by AFP

AFP has debunked misinformation about other storms here, including tornado videos falsely claimed to show Tropical Storm Hilary.

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Kansas tornado footage misrepresented as Hurricane Idalia winds

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