Meteorologists appear baffled after NOAA backs Trump's hurricane claims

(Image credit: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images)

last updated 8 September 2019

The drama surrounding whether Hurricane Dorian ever threatened Alabama continues.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Friday backed President Trump's claim earlier this week that Hurricane Dorian might be headed toward Alabama. In a statement the NOAA criticized the Birmingham, Alabama, National Weather Service, which it oversees, for denying in a tweet that Alabama faced any danger from the storm.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

"Some administrator, or someone at the top of NOAA, threw the National Weather Service under the bus," Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami, told NPR. "The part that really smells fishy is that this is five days after that tweet by Trump. If the National Weather Service did issue a misleading or incorrect tweet, that would need to be amended or fixed in an hour or two." Read more at NPR and Washington Post.

Explore More

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox