Clips in widespread tornado compilation video predate Hurricane Milton
- Published on October 10, 2024 at 22:24
- 9 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
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"October 9, 2024 Two large tornado producing supercells are moving north in southern Florida right now. Before Hurricane Milton landfall FL," says yellow-highlighted text over the collection of videos posted October 9, 2024 on X.
The post comes from "S p r i n t e r," an anonymous account that has repeatedly spread disinformation. Similar posts cropped up across platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. The Mirror, a British tabloid, also shared several screenshots from the montage in an article.
Hurricane Milton did churn up a spate of deadly tornadoes as it ripped across Florida on October 9 as a powerful Category 3 storm, leaving at least ten people dead and millions without power as it barrelled through communities still recovering from Hurricane Helene two weeks earlier.
But each of the visuals in the viral compilation predates the storm -- and one appears to be the product of computer-generated imagery.
CGI creation
A reverse image search traced the first clip in the compilation to a June 2024 YouTube video from an account that posts CGI tornadoes (archived here). The caption on the video, which was inverted in the montage circulating online, says it shows "a fictional place called the Uncanny Valley."
The creator's channel adds: "All long tornado shorts are CGI and hand produced."
Kansas in 2022
The montage's second clip shows a real twister, but it dates to 2022.
AFP previously investigated the same footage and found that it was captured as a tornado battered Andover, Kansas in April of that year.
New York in July
The third video shows violent winds -- suspected to be from a tornado, according to local news reports -- that ripped the roof off a home in Arkwright, New York, in July 2024. Several local outlets posted the footage (archived here and here).
Georgia in 2022
The fourth shot in the compilation, of intense winds blowing debris across a porch, traces to a tornado that whirled through Ellabell, Georgia in April 2022, AFP previously reported. A member of a golf club took the video -- flipped horizontally in the misrepresented version online -- from the course.
Louisiana in 2021
The fifth clip dates to at least August 2021, reverse image searches revealed. A TikTok video sharing it indicated in its caption that the footage shows Louisiana during Hurricane Ida (archived here).
Alabama in August
Reverse image searches also revealed that the montage's sixth visual -- which has also been flipped horizontally -- was filmed in Auburn, Alabama.
James Spann, a meteorologist at a TV station in Alabama, posted it to X and other platforms in August 2024, writing: "Strong winds in association with the storm blowing through Auburn… video from Rustin Roberts" (archived here).
Strong winds in association with the storm blowing through Auburn… video from Rustin Roberts pic.twitter.com/wrsd3l0fHE
— James Spann (@spann) August 18, 2024
Florida in 2022
Reverse image and keyword searches surfaced the seventh clip, posted to YouTube in November 2022 (archived here). The description says it shows strong wind and rain pelting St. Augustine, Florida, during Tropical Storm Nicole.
Florida in 2023
The eighth and final clip in the compilation was recorded as Hurricane Idalia toppled a gas station in Perry, Florida, in August 2023. Reverse image searches show David Baxter III, a stringer with StormChasingVideo.com, posted the original footage to Instagram and X (archived here and here)
AFP has debunked other misinformation about hurricanes here.
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