CHARLOTTE, N.C. — As people across the Southeast slowly recover from Hurricane Helene’s devastating impacts, there's a lot of misinformation beginning to spread across social media.
With social media so easily accessible by anyone, this is a good reminder to always double-check where the information comes from before sharing it on your page.
THE CLAIM
Hurricane Helene "popped out of nowhere."
THE ANSWER
No, the storm did not just pop up out of nowhere and meteorologists have been tracking this storm for several days before it hit.
WHAT WE FOUND
A graphic online shows a storm quickly appearing “out of nowhere” around Wednesday at 11 a.m. The user claims he was using the Weather Channel app. The Weather Channel was covering the storm several days before then. The app also has several different data features like future and past forcasts so that is why it can look like the storm pops up.
Our WCNC weather team has been tracking Helene as early as Sunday, Sept. 22, which is five days before the storm.
On Sept. 23, Brad also shared the first official track forecast, stating this will likely be a major hurricane along the coast with a significant flash flood risk inland, including the Carolinas.
THE CLAIM
A new disturbance is going to take the same path as Hurricane Helene.
WHAT WE FOUND
These photos show a new disturbance taking the same path as Hurricane Helene.
But as you can tell, these photos are actually old photos of Helene’s path and not the new disturbance in the gulf.
"Yes, there is a chance of development in the Gulf of Mexico over the next seven days," Panovich said. "No, it is not currently a threat to the Carolinas.”
Brad said at this time its just too soon to know what path this distrurbance will take. You can be sure that Panovich and the rest of the WCNC Weather Impact team will be watching it closely.
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