“We’re all talking about how much more it’s ramped up,” said Marshall Shepherd, who is the director of the University of Georgia’s Atmospheric Sciences Program and a former president of the American Meteorological Society. There has been “a palpable difference in tone and aggression toward people in my field,” he said.

Mr. Shepherd said the scrutiny meteorologists face is sharply amplified during major weather events, and the back-to-back hurricanes, combined with the political climate and second-guessing of weather experts, may have created conditions ripe for abuse.

Helene made landfall as a Category 4 storm on Florida’s Gulf Coast in late September, tearing through the Southeast and becoming the deadliest storm to hit the U.S. mainland in nearly two decades. Just two weeks later, Milton rapidly strengthened and struck Florida as a Category 3 storm, resulting in at least 14 deaths, serious flooding and the destruction of scores of homes.

Emergency workers have also been targeted with abuse. In the aftermath of Helene, Federal Emergency Management Agency personnel received a significant amount of harassment, including false claims that the agency was stealing donations and diverting disaster aid to Ukraine. Calls were made for residents to form militias to defend against those workers, who also faced antisemitic and misogynistic threats.

The agency’s administrator, Deanne Criswell, told ABC in early October that the rhetoric was “demoralizing” and had created “fear in our own employees.” She added in another interview that the disinformation was hampering relief efforts.

Many of the falsehoods about the hurricanes have been spread by conservatives and supporters of former President Donald J. Trump, including a former Trump administration official and a Republican congresswoman.

Of all the conspiracy theories and disinformation that have circulated, meteorologists say one falsehood that has especially gotten out of hand is the claim that the government is creating or controlling the storms. Forecasters have been harassed for either failing to promote these claims or for disseminating accurate information that counters them.

Matthew Cappucci, a D.C.-based meteorologist for MyRadar and The Washington Post, said he received hundreds of comments and dozens of messages during the storms about how the government had modified the weather and that accused him of helping cover it up. He said that the threats were “exasperating” at a time when he was working around the clock to track the hurricanes.

“Part of me wanted to say, ‘If you don’t trust my warnings, then stay in place,’” he said. “‘Just sit there and see what happens.’”

Mr. Shepherd said that such false claims about outside forces controlling the weather have always existed, recalling how similar assertions emerged during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. “The difference is that they were always out there in ‘fringe-world,’ but now I’ve seen them become almost mainstream,” he said.

During an interview on CNN as Milton approached Florida, a reporter asked Mr. Shepherd whether the storm was manipulated by people, referring to a person he had just spoken to on the street who had made that claim. “It’s stunning that the reporter had to ask that question,” Mr. Shepherd said.

The abuse directed at meteorologists can have serious consequences, they said, eroding trust in them when they issue critical warnings, in addition to taking a personal toll on them.

Last summer, Chris Gloninger, the chief meteorologist of a television news station in Iowa, left his job after he received a string of harassing messages — including a death threat — for his on-air discussions of climate change. He began incorporating the topic into his forecasts after being stunned by Hurricane Sandy.

Matt Lanza, a Houston-based meteorologist and editor at The Eyewall, a publication covering Atlantic storms, said responding to disinformation takes time away from explaining what people should expect during the storm.

Since Helene, he said that the harassment he has received has “reached a new stratosphere,” and he’s concerned that the industry will start losing meteorologists if it continues.

“Nothing good comes of this,” he said.
___

Instead of the old man yelling at the cloud meme, now we have the old men yelling at the guys who report on the clouds meme

>>1352760
And his cult followers sending death threats.

>>1352759
>“Nothing good comes of this,” he said.
Except the redpill crowd gets to feel like special snowflakes with privileged inside info normies don't have

>>1352899
Well, that is literally what makes one redpilled.
Good thing people like you are there to deny the things the factual information redpilled crowd believes by outright denying it.
Things such as:
Blacks commit the majority of murders and homosexuals account for the vast majority of HIV cases can't be believed otherwise the bluepill agenda will fall to ruin.

>>1352900
Your alternative facts aren't real. They were made up by swindlers who want you to pay for their legal defense.

>>1352906
Quiet, drug addicted lizard person.

This post-truth alternative facts thing is getting really fucking concerning.
The internet was a mistake

>pills
The ultimate irony here is that the source of that so-called 'meme', a movie starring Keanu Reeves, is by those no longer known as the Wachowski Brothers.
Time to get a new 'meme' as continuing to use this one means you're trannies

>>1352760
>>1352776
>>1352899
>>1352906
>>1353124
The billionaires who benefit from this climate fraud will not be the ones beaten and hanged in the streets. It will be the useful idiots like you.

>>1353127
have a rupee

>>1353125
The pill meme came from Total Recall, not from The Matrix

>>1353127
>The billionaires who benefit from this climate fraud
The billionaires who make the clickbait you read are way worse than the billionaires who benefit from climate fraud

>>1353127
Why do you favor the billionaires who profit from green tech over billionaires who profit from oil?

>>1353158
>he thinks billionaires profit from green tech
Who?

>>1353161
Elon Musk