Weather Photos: Fact or Fiction?
The following entry describes various storm photo hoaxes which are circulating via email:
1. Tornado + Lightning = Neither the Time nor the Place
2. Mammatus Clouds - But When?
3. Not Katrina, Not Any Hurricane
4. Not The Edge Hurricane Isabel
5. Real Sunset, Fake Lightning
6. Lightning Strikes A Tree - Fact or Fiction?
If you'd like to discuss the authenticity of any of the photos mentioned below, please post to the WeatherMatrix Forums.
1. Tornado + Lightning = Neither the Time nor the Place)
First up - don't be fooled if you receive this photo via email and someone claims it was taken during this Spring's tornado outbreaks. Someone tried to upload it to our Photo Gallery last week but I nixed it right away because I recognized it. The uploader claimed that it was "taken by a friend of [his] mother's" in Indiana last month.
I knew I had seen the photo many times before, including on a weather calendar in the 1990's (it is very unique). A little hunting led me to this page, which has since been removed.
The author of the page said: "That picture was on the cover of the AMS Preprints publication from the 17th Conference on Severe Local Storms, from October of 1993. In that publication, the photographer, Mr. Fred Smith's contact address was given as Okeechobee, Florida."
I gave Mr. Smith a call to ask him additional questions about the photo. Fred says he's not a professional photographer but he was taking lightning photos from his back yard on June 15, 1993 when he got this lucky shot of a large waterspout on Lake Okeechobee, Florida. The photo was taken about 10:00 at night.
So the photo is definitely real, but it was not taken in the Midwest, and not taken in 2006.
2. Mammatus Clouds - But When?
One hoax I've seen travelling through the emails this week is Jorn Olsen's Mammatus photos (one shown at right), which the emails claim were taken "just the other night." What the hoax purveyor didn't remember was that the copyright (2004) is on the images (even the email versions!). So, a hoax in time but not place or authenticity. Jorn says his photos have appeared (courtesy other "photographers") on more than one television station.
2. Not Katrina, Not Any Hurricane
You may have received an email entitled "Canadian Photos", "Ontario Storms", "Missouri Storms", "Katrina Coming Inland", "Katrina in Alabama / Mississippi" containing any or all of the photos below.
An example of one recently (I've received several):
The first time I got these, I was suspicious of this immediately because the storms look like they were taken during different times and places, and there are few storm photographers who can capture storm photos of this caliber.
Turns out, the photos are unusual, but real, and they belong to Mike Hollingshead, at ExtremeInstability.com, who has a knack for getting unbelievable, unusual, and beautiful storm photos.
Want the proof? See if anything looks familiar in his May 24, 2004 chase, July 24, 2002 chase, or July 12, 2004 chase.
Mike says that he appreciates any reports of people using his photos without permission, but it's a full-time job filling out complaint forms.
4. Not the Edge Hurricane Isabel
Here's another time/location hoax. This photo claims to show the edge of Hurricane Isabel from a ship in the Atlantic. In general, while weather enthusiasts I talked to could not nail down the photographer, most agree that this photo was taken in the Pacific. The phenomenon shown is a gust front or shelf cloud... the "edge" of a thunderstorm. If this were the edge of the hurricane, it would be a mighty small one. Hurricanes are so large, their edges would not be any more disinguishable than the horizon. Now, technically this could be a thunderstorm in the outer bands of a hurricane (like this one that Douglas Kiesling shot, see others about half-way down this page). But this still isn't Isabel and I wouldn't qualify the outer bands of a hurricane as its "edge".
5. Real Sunset, Fake Lightning
Some photos are not only misnamed/dated but are plain out fakes. Here is a sunset/lightning photo which has made the rounds in email, usually accompanied by other impressive photos (some of Mike's usually). I can tell you, as the son of a lightning photographer, and from having looked at lightning photos for twenty years, this one is just not real.
Saying nothing of the fact that it's nearly impossible to photograph lightning with a sunset, it's hard to explain but just compare the way that the arms fork out with any of our real lightning photos. The forks are way too smooth, the breaks are rounded and there are way too many of them. I believe that the sunset photo is probably real but the artist (but obviously non-meteorologist) who drew this lightning on top put too much human expertise into it.
That said, lightning/sunset pictures are rare, but they have been taken, by storm chaser photographers such as Warren Faidley. There are other examples of fake lightning overlaid onto a sunset, for example by computer artist Lori Howe. Hers actually looks more realistic than the one in question, and she admits it was computer-generated. Of course, since the photo in question has been passed around by various people, it's impossible to say who did the original, but it's likely they would freely admit that it was not a real photo. The problem is that people are passing it around like it is.
6. Lightning Strikes A Tree - Fact or Fiction?
This photo is a bit of a sore subject for me. It was supposedly taken by J.D. Hodges, who is a professional photographer. However, after I recently challenged its authenticity on his message board, the good discussion that several people were having there was abruptly deleted, and the photo was removed from his portfolio (though this poster is still available on his site).
Again, it's hard to explain, but this photo looks far from reality. Like the above, the tree may be real, and the lightning may even be real, but the photo is not. It is likely the composite of two photos. There are a couple examples out there of lightning hitting a tree, and it doesn't look like this. What it really looks like can be seen in a famous photo -- scroll to the bottom of this page -- which I've also seen on weather calendars. Click here for a zoomed out version. Faidley has also gotten lucky enough to snap lightning hitting a tree. There's also this photo taken in Washington State (larger version), which presents an interesting shadow which is probably a camera artifact.*
He also has another fake photo of lightning which is still in his portfolio. This photo may be real but it involves no meteorological phenomena. His claim that it is "sheet lightning" is ridiculous - sheet lightning occurs inside clouds, not partially in a car and a field. I'd believe it was a ghost before lightning.
Artifacts, or "ghosts" are common with lightning when it freaks out the camera hardware. The most common is a lightning strike which appears to be in the foreground, but really is not. You can see that phenomenon in this photo which I took (technically it is actually a video frame but the same thing happens with a camera shot). For more information on lightning ghosts, see weather photographer Douglas Kiesling's page.
If you receive any of the above via email, reply to the entire list of recipients to explain that they have been hoaxes. Feel free to use this URL as a reference. If you get additional photos that you think are questionable, forward them on, or post to the WeatherMatrix Forums.
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