Anatomy of a Fake Hail Picture

[Randy Jennings]

Plano, TX (Dallas Morning News 4/14/16) – Newspaper busts a fake hail social media post making the rounds again. Story at: http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2016/04/dallas-area-hail-was-big-but-it-wasnt-this-big.html/

Original blog post that busted this picture the first time at: http://wxbrad.com/anatomy-of-a-fake-hail-picture/

In case you want to see some pictures of what the real hail looked like in Collin County TX (mainly Wylie, TX) on 4/11/16, go to: http://www.nbcdfw.com/weather/stori...e-Thunderstorm-Warnings-Issued-375312511.html or any other Dallas area media webpage and search for 4/11/16 hail.

The hail was up to 4.25 inches according to the NWS. It punched holes entirely thru roofs and caused Wylie ISD to close the entire school district for a day (never heard of a “hail day”). This is the second major hailstorm to hit southern Collin County in a couple of weeks. Wylie ISD had $20M in damage the first time, and says that is small compared to what they had in the second storm. They had just replaced many AC units several days earlier.

 

[Stuart Wilson]

Interestingly the first appearance of this picture, though fake, was actually an innocent mistake by the poster who genuinely believed it to be a hail stone. It was only after she started getting hassle that she was able to track down a fellow student who was responsible for the "prank". The actual prankster probably had no idea of the results of their japery.

The re-surfacing of this picture, however, would seem to be a knowing scam by the person who posted it.

So we do need to be mindful that just because we can call something out it is always possible that the mouthpiece for the fake or forgery or whatever it is may be completely innocent and they might be in line for a ton of grief for something not of their doing.

 

[Paul Knightley]

The were probably just trying to do this: