R U Fooled by Recent Weather Photo Hoaxes?

UPDATE 1/28: There is another (or perhaps it is the same) Frozen Coyote hoax going around in Colorado, this time it's been picked up as a story by a local TV station (thanks Blog Reader Scott).

I have seen a lot of fake weather photos making the rounds by email in the past few months, and it has now spread to social networks like Facebook, Twitter and other social networking "you report" sites like those of local TV stations.

Weather observers like yourselves need to be extra careful to not always believe what you see, especially if it's not coming from an official weather source like AccuWeather.com or someone that you know personally (not a friend of a friend of a friend).

If you see a photo that looks too good to be true, it probably is. Don't be passive and let the hoax spread further. Reply to the person who posted it and ask them if they can provide a source. Do a Google search for the photos in question along with terms like "snopes" "urban legend" or "hoax." And if you see one, let me know so I can be aware of it, add it to this blog entry, and issue an alert in J's Breaking Weather News (at right).

Other blog entries that I have written in the past on this topic have included hoaxes in different sectors of the weather business. If you haven't read these, you should, and you'll be even more suspicious of that "hot new weather photo."

October 11, 2009 -

July 1, 2009 -

April 25, 2006 -

Some recent photo hoaxes are shown below. Stay tuned on Monday for more information on last week's California Tornado Hoax on Twitter & Facebook.

1. The Michigan Blizzard of Biblical Proportions & FEMA Failure Double Hoax: This hoax was an old one from 2005 that had previously been assigned to North Dakota, Colorado and Iowa. It claims that a huge blizzard occurred (which is probably an exaggeration of a heavy snow event in each case) and FEMA failed to respond to requests. Even the original version of this from North Dakota in 2005 was a hoax. This year's version, which started in December 2009 but is still being circulated around, also included a set of impressive snow photos that also claim to hail from New York and Canada (the Snopes site is not sure of their origin but says they are at least 7 years old).

2. Ever Seen A Frozen Wave? You Still Haven't. Another popular hoax making the rounds this week is the "Frozen Wave" Hoax, which has been circulating since 2007. The only true thing about this one is that the photos are beautiful. They were taken by Tony Travouillon in Antarctica, not "Lake Michigan" as the most recent email claims, and they don't show an ocean wave frozen in place, which is impossible; what they do show is ice formations carved slowly over time. SIDENOTE 3/24/10: Frozen Waterfalls are real (here's a view of one from behind) though they also don't happen instantaneously, but rather over a period of weeks. In fact, temperatures can't change fast enough on Earth to "flash-freeze" anything, including...

3. How About A Frozen Coyote? This one I just got on Friday and I admit, I had to do a double-take, because the photo shows a snow drift around the animal, which was brilliant on the part of the person who made the hoax -- it's much more realistic than just throwing a stuffed fox out in the snow (which is what happened, in this case they did it ahead of time so the snow would drift around it). Warm coyotes in Colorado are even less likely to freeze in place than cold water in Antarctica.

4. Oh Those Switzerland Ice Photos: I'm throwing this one in because I've seen it dozens of times over the past few years, alternatively claiming to be from Michigan or elsewhere. The photos are really incredible. the Switzerland Lake Ice Storm Photos which are shown here. A number of people have tried to figure out who the photographer was but I don’t believe that anyone has found him. This site talks about the pictures, and links to other pictures of the same event, but doesn’t say who the photographer is this site says the photographer is Pierre-Alain" but gives no contact info for him.

5. The Windows Sunset Strikes Again. One of AccuWeather.com's competitors -- who will rename nameless because I didn't take a screencap of the photo before it was removed -- not only accepted a fake photo into their Photo Gallery on September 24, 2009, but rebroadcast it to all of their Facebook Fans, before myself and a couple other Fans realized it was this pink image which has been distributed as a wallpaper with Windows XP since its inception in 2002.

6. Hail Fail - But Nice Try. I admit that I had to laugh at, and this speaks to the problem that the moderators of all this social media content (like myself) have. You want to take the latest hot weather pictures but you have no way of knowing that what you receive is a hoax or not. I give NBC in stopping this picture of "hail" that looked suspiciously like ice cubes from going online (with other photos from the storms). It seems obvious when you see it but it happens. A lot of these places have Moderators who haven't seen a hundred hoaxes like I have - or no moderation at all, and I previously blogged about a Missouri TV station that was fooled by an old tornado photo.

Report a Typo