UPDATE 1/28: I am excited to announce that I have found the original photographer of the pier shot, through the Comment that Donna left below, and have obtained permission to (finally) show the picture here on my blog in its original glory (looks MUCH better than those copied floating around). Photographer Claude Panis, a City of Huntington Beach Lifeguard says:

UPDATE 1/26: Kudos to ScienceDude who was all over this hoax on the day it was perpetrated at the Orange County Register. I posted on his Facebook page to let him know the second photo listed below was taken in Florida. And it looks like my advice yesterday that you should rely on "official weather sources" isn't working because this one was really pervasive, it's been found on a FOX TV Station (screencap), ABC News (screencap), CNN (screencap - at least they said "not vetted") and the Weather Channel (see Comment from Curt below).

ORIGINAL BLOG 1/25: Yesterday I talked about a number of weather photo hoaxes but I wanted to leave this one for today because it deserves it's own entry.

The Huntington Beach, California Waterspout Hoax: When a waterspout moved on land near Long Beach California last week, various versions of this photo started appearing, in fact I saw more than a dozen (picfog search for huntington tornado or huntington waterspout- be careful on that site as there are a lot of inappropriate pics). The weird thing was: They all looked different, with different exposures, brightness, and some seemed to be screen captures or pictures of a computer screen; many were poor quality. In summary: They looked like a photo that had been passed around for a few years. This immediately set off my "hoax alarm" but it took me a couple days to find out the real story: The photo was of a waterspout at Huntington Beach but it was taken 5 years ago in 2005.

The first source (as a great example of irony) has a fake weather photo that I've blogged about before as a thumbnail at the top. The second source says that the photo was taken by the NWS (but they replied to me via email that it was not). Kudos to this guy who busted the myth in reply to a Twitpic before I was able to research it fully. This was a brilliant hoax because it took advantage of an accurate, local, real-time weather event with obvious geographical clues (the pier) that, if incorrect, would have had locals debunking it quickly.

There were other photos that claimed to be from this storm, such as this one, which also got retweeted quite a bit on Twitter. It had the same "used" look and looked vaguely familiar, so I was suspicious of it also. This would appear to be the original -- another 2005 classic, this time from Florida. All told, no reputable news agency carried a photo of the actual twister that I could find.

Comments (4): HBDonna:

Regarding the Huntington Beach, California Waterspout Hoax:

This photo was taken by City of Huntington Beach Marine Safety Officer Claude Panis from Lifeguard Tower Zero on the Huntington Beach Pier on February 19, 2005. It is making the rounds, with many different people taking credit or saying that "their friend" shot it last week.

http://sciencedude.freedomblogging.com/2010/01/22/beware-of-fake-oc-tornado-photo/82175/

It's been fascinating here in Surf City USA to watch an "urban myth" evolve....

Posted by HBDonna | January 26, 2010 2:14 PM Curt McCormick:

not entirely true Jesse - The Weather Channel ran a photo of the "waterspout" last night. I just happened to look up to the TV while they were showing it. Understood that TWC is not a "news agency" but it is big and legitimate...

FROM JESSE: Nice! Wish I would have caught that. Looks like they have both of them on their site (screencap) as we speak, submitted by their "viewers."

Posted by Curt McCormick | January 26, 2010 8:30 AM Debi Stratman:

Great blog, thanks for all your work! FAbulous stuff.

Posted by Debi Stratman | January 25, 2010 8:02 PM Donny:

it's a shame what people will do for a little attentian- is it to hard to get a cheap kodak easy share and take pictures of nature and maybe you'll get a cold air funnel cloud if your lucky- through my 15 years of taking nature and weather shots i have came to realize you know it isn't easy at all- but through experimenting with different zoom levels- and using proper ISO settings- you to can take good pictures

Posted by Donny | January 25, 2010 7:10 PM