If you've been on socials since Hurricane Milton started slingshotting toward Florida, you have probably seen a bunch of posts like this:
Even Mike Benz, a former State Department official who founded the Foundation for Freedom to fight censorship, who is an expert on foreign policy history regarding conflicts like the one in Ukraine, and regularly speaks at places like Hillsdale College and on Tucker Carlson's podcast, posted this:
My dude, are you trolling right now, or are you actually suggesting that the U.S. government is creating/hijacking storms to attack Republican strongholds??
Anyway, our favorite weather guy Chris Martz (who loves attacking the climate-change cultists) decided to take aim at the weather truthers on the Right who are acting like lunatics.
The latest conspiracy theory is that Tropical Storm — soon-to-be hurricane — Milton is being deliberately steered by "they" (presumably the U.S. government) into Florida because, as many users have mentioned, 'I have never seen a hurricane form in the Gulf of Mexico, then travel eastward.' Instead of being a paranoid coo-coo bird, I decided to take a look at NOAA's HURDAT2 database, and I found that since 1851 [when reliable data collection began], there have been 14 hurricane formations in the Gulf of Mexico that then tracked eastward and made landfall in Florida. It happened in the years 1852, 1859, 1867 ("Galveston"), twice in 1871, 1873, 1877, 1888, 1920, 1924, 1945 ("Outer Banks"), 1950 (Love), 1953 (Hazel) and most recently in 1998 (Earl). https://coast.noaa.gov/hurricanes/
So, while the track is rare, it isn't unheard of. Tropical cyclones are generally steered east-to-west along the trade wind belt (i.e., the easterlies) in lower latitudes due to the position of the subtropical Bermuda high. Once the cyclone gets to the periphery of the high, it begins to curve northward. As it gains latitude, there is an eastward acceleration by the jet steam (i.e., westerlies) and conservation of angular momentum. The location of the high and wind belts move slightly which alter the tracks. There's no conspiracy here. Just scientifically illiterate people who need to take a meteorology course or two.
There's two paradoxical problems at play here.
The first is one about humanity's ability to change the weather:
The second is even more obvious:
Is there tech that allows for the manipulation of local weather? Sure. And sometimes it goes sideways.
But if you're going to believe that there's a vast network of top-secret government arrays that can whip up hurricanes and tornadoes to destroy their enemies, you have to have a coherent worldview to round out that Ian Fleming novel. If the government has this power, then you must also believe:
That the U.S. government is highly competent, coordinated, and efficient.
That the U.S. government is in league with other opposing world powers to attack its own citizens (why else would it use this tech on rural folks in Appalachia but not against Russia in Ukraine)?
That manmade climate change is not only a probability, but a certainty, and its use as a weapon is arguably the greatest threat to mankind outside nuclear war.
So ... why are there so many people out there saying Hurricane Milton is a government op to destroy MAGA-Land?
Well, the simplest answer is this: When people wake up from the left-wing narrative, there's usually some course-correcting involved.
Put another way: Don't hurl yourself off a cliff to escape the sheeple.
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