Some viral weather forecasts are fake news - Two reasons they must be stopped

Jeff Duda said:
That's a joke, right?

Hype forecast: TORNADO OUTBREAK TOMORROW!
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We've seen that play out on social media hundreds of times... If not thousands. I know of zero (0) examples when it did anything except garner more shares for the post.

Just this week a local hypermeteorologist posted that Lansing would get 1/3rd inch of ice right before the morning drive, causing massive travel disruptions. Got hundreds of shares, tens of thousands of views.

Nobody canceled a thing, and no ice came.

[Sorry Scott - just noticed your post as mine went up :) Thoughts are the same. If bad things happened - they'd have happened by now!]
 
ScottCurry said:
Jeff,

I understand your example of how this *could* happen. Do you have an example (news article or something) of where this actually happened?
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No, and IMO this is highly unlikely to ever occur. I just wanted to draw out the distinction between unlikely and impossible. I understood Rob's statement to be more of strict impossibility.

Rob, if I misinterpreted your statement, I apologize.
 
Well, given the success of "fake news" in this election, I suppose anything is possible :) My lack of concern bases in part on the fact that in the 5+ years this has been happening, not one instance has occurred.
 
rdale said:
That was Kevin Martin. It didn't stop him at all, that just encouraged his followers and he had tens of thousands of people going to his page.

I still can't see how a fake forecast can do harm, and until that happens not sure how that would result in a court case.
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I've actually had people email and send me "panic" messages when active severe weather events were occurring in their areas. Some people get 100% of their information off social media and the individuals they follow. In defense, you cannot always blame the source as they have no obligation to provide continuous emergency information. The problem occurs when posters give the false impression (for likes, etc.) that they are a trusted source for instant, accurate information and never make any attempt to tell them otherwise.
 
I'm not doubting that it can cause 'panic' - just not to the point where it causes actual 'harm'. Those who could be pushed into a panic so easily are also those most likely to believe that the world is flat, 9/11 is a conspiracy, and contrails are chemtrails too... I'd say those are potentially FAR worse than a EF7 tornado outlook.
 
Another angle that this could be approached is from the data providers. That is, restrict access/require registration to be able to view model data beyond 5 days. The NWS, being the gatekeeper for the GFS, could implement some sort of control or requirement that all providers have meet to redistribute the data.
 
Well of course that would be highly illegal, since it's a taxpayer product and costs nothing to redistribute 5 days versus 15 days. But let's play that out - what control would you provide?

Meteorologist? There is no legal definition.
Degreed meteorologist? Do you accept all degrees? Or must they meet AMS requirements?
Sealed meteorologist? AMS? NWA? Create a new one?

While we play those out - here's where your proposal fails:

I see FAR more degreed and sealed meteorologists posting 10 day GFS maps saying "This isn't my forecast but..."
 
I'd grant access to anyone, then revoke it for those who abuse the privilege. I don't know, it's just an idea. If the fake forecasts cause enough quantifiable heartache for the NWS, it seems like they'd have the means to clamp down on it since they're the source for at least some of the data.

Could it be distributed encrypted via AWIPS or something similar to where it would be difficult for the average end user to grab it unless they had the hardware? That would of course make it hard for us (chasers, etc) to get it. Then again, I rarely find beyond-5 day winter forecasts of any real use for me personally. Maybe a collective agreement among end-user providers to restrict access? Or at least, have some sort of click-through where the user agrees not to share output beyond 5 days with the public? Or, at minimum, some type of notification educating the person viewing the images about the problems with sharing. After all, I don't think *all* of the people doing this are doing it maliciously, but naively. Like you say though, plenty of those doing it who should know better.
 
Dan Robinson said:
Could it be distributed encrypted via AWIPS or something similar to where it would be difficult for the average end user to grab it unless they had the hardware?
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No, because then the academic sector loses access or has to pay more to just to get data on which to perform research.
 
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