The National Weather Service tweeted that it has noticed fake forecasts spreading on social media for Hurricane Irma, now in the Atlantic and heading toward the leeward side of the Caribbean, and they just wanted to let people know what an official hurricane forecast looks like.
Keep your eyes out for fake forecasts. THIS is what an official NOAA advisory looks like. Note: forecast only goes out 5 days. #Irma pic.twitter.com/9k87y7jkMz
— NWS (@NWS) September 1, 2017
People, especially those along the Gulf Coast, are understandably concerned, after Hurricane Harvey and the destruction it brought to Houston and the Texas coast.
But Irma, which is teetering between a Category 3 and Category 2 storm, may never hit land, although some long-range forecast models take its path up the Eastern Seaboard or to the Gulf Coast. Others take it totally out to sea; it’s just too soon to make any more reliable predictions with certainty.
The National Weather Service, as stated in the tweet, only makes forecasts that go out for five days, so any forecast that says the hurricane will hit the US didn’t come from them. Period.
