Employee dumbfounded by coworker's bizarre claim about hurricane radar images: 'Dangerous real-world effects'

2024's monstrous Hurricane Milton became the "second-most intense" tropical cyclone to appear in the Gulf of Mexico and the world's strongest tropical cyclone of the year. 

"Everything that you would want if you're looking for a storm to go absolutely berserk is what Milton had," Phil Klotzbach, a Colorado State University hurricane researcher, explained, according to Fortune Magazine.

NBC News delineated how Milton began when a tropical depression met a storm front in the Gulf of Mexico and pulled away as a small, quickly spinning system.

Then, NBC News reported, it "encountered record-high ocean temperatures and moist, warm air."

It then experienced an "eyewall replacement cycle" in which a new, even bigger eye was created. During this process, hurricanes can wane but then restrengthen. Milton expanded and decreased from 180 mph winds to 145 mph before increasing to 160 mph.

Still, conspiracy theories abounded about Milton. One Reddit user was shocked when a coworker believed such misinformation:

"A coworker came in and started going out about how there were right angles in the Hurricane Milton Doppler radar images and that was proof the government was manipulating the weather."

These kinds of conspiracy theories, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's claim that Hurricane Milton was the product of geoengineering, are dangerous because they dissuade individuals from understanding the real causes of destructive hurricanes. 

They distract from examining the real effects of natural disasters and even sometimes culminate in threats of violence.

The London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue stated that "a broad collection of conspiracy groups" or politically or commercially interested parties "coalesce around crises to further their agendas through online falsehoods, division, and hate." The institute added that these online actions "often produce dangerous real-world effects."   

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Hugh Willoughby, who worked in NOAA's Hurricane Research Division for over 20 years, told NBC News, "We're all trying to prevent human suffering. And if somebody were deliberately doing the sort of things they imagine, we'd blow the whistle on it."

Redditors were critical of the theory.

One shared that other hurricanes have made similar sharp turns: "Take a look at previous hurricane tracks and you will also see the 'right angles' that they are trying to claim are 'unnatural.'"

"Hurricanes wobble all over the place. This one has been very small … so the wobbles are particularly well defined and pronounced on the trackers," explained another Redditor.

Indeed, NBC News reported, based on information from the National Hurricane Center, that "Milton 'wobbled' Tuesday afternoon, changing its projected track."

One Redditor simply said, "They think humans have the ability to cause climate change, but not climate change."

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