A top meteorologist at Fox News slammed President Trump for presenting a doctored map showing Hurricane Dorian could hit Alabama.
Janice Dean, senior meteorologist for Fox News Channel, explained the National Hurricane Center’s cone of uncertainty never reached the state despite what the altered map showed.
“Just so everyone is clear. This forecast cone was from 5 days ago. Alabama was NEVER in the official cone from the @NHC_Atlantic,” she tweeted Wednesday. “The sharpie-bubble was drawn by someone else. This map is inaccurate, misleading and fake.”
Just so everyone is clear. This forecast cone was from 5 days ago. Alabama was NEVER in the official cone from the @NHC_Atlantic The sharpie-bubble was drawn by someone else. This map is inaccurate, misleading and fake. pic.twitter.com/PIBvQFKmOH
— Janice Dean (@JaniceDean) September 4, 2019
The National Hurricane Center’s forecast cone shows the probable track of the center of the storm (taking into consideration a wide array of computer models) over the next few days.
Earlier in the day Trump defended a tweet he sent on Sunday, which warned Alabama could “most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated,” by showing reporters a NHC map from Aug. 29, before Dorian even reached the Bahamas. The short-term forecast cone covered the Bahamas, and its extended reach, outlined in white, covered the Florida peninsula.
But added to graphic was a black semicircle next to the NHC forecast cone that reached over the Florida panhandle and a part of Alabama.
As Dean noted in a second tweet, it is a violation of federal law to falsify a federal forecast and “pass it off as official.”
When pressed on the alteration, Trump only said, “I don’t know.”
President @realDonaldTrump gives an update on Hurricane #Dorian: pic.twitter.com/CmxAXHY5AO
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 4, 2019
This happened after Trump was briefed last week in the Oval Office about Dorian and was shown the same map without the sharpie addition, as shown in an official White House photograph.
Weather forecasters have raged as Trump has quadrupled down on his comments about Dorian, sharing weather maps and tweets from last week that show Alabama early could have been in Dorian’s path. But by the time he first mentioned Alabama on Sunday, meteorologists had settled on a different path for Dorian, one that would carry it up the East Coast.
The National Weather Service office in Birmingham even put out a tweet after Trump first mentioned Alabama, asserting the state would not see “any impacts” from Dorian because it was projected to remain too far east.
In his latest defensive tweets, Trump accused the “fake news” media of denying Alabama was ever in Dorian’s forecast.
Just as I said, Alabama was originally projected to be hit. The Fake News denies it! pic.twitter.com/elJ7ROfm2p
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2019
I was with you all the way Alabama. The Fake News Media was not! https://t.co/gO5pwahaj9
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2019
Dorian devastated the Bahamas over Labor Day weekend before lashing out at the East Coast this week.
