The Trump map of Alabama: a detailed chronology



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He then repeated the request after the National Meteorological Service demystified it.

Then he insisted that the media, not him, were wrong.

Then, to try to prove his point of view, he showed the media an obsolete map, clearly altered.

Then, trying again, he tweeted an unmodified card that was too old to prove his point of view.

Then, trying again again, he tweeted some older cards.

Finally, Trump asked his Homeland Security Advisor to issue a statement attesting to his presence.

For five days, President Donald Trump has launched a series of inaccurate and confusing statements about Dorian – aggressively defending his original false claim by being repeatedly dishonest about what he had said at the outset .

We prepared the fiasco for you, commentary by comment.

Sunday 1st September at 10h51:

Trump starts the controversy with a tweet. "In addition to Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama will most likely be hit (a lot) harder than expected," he said.

This is important: Trump's first statement is that Alabama, among other states, will likely be more affected than previous forecasts had suggested.

Except that the opposite is true.

According to forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, two days earlier, Dorian had discovered that a tiny portion of southeastern Alabama could be affected by Dorian . (The "cone of uncertainty" spread over a few kilometers in the state.)

But NOAA's current forecast at the time of Trump's tweet showed that the storm had no impact on the state, as it was moving north rather than west.

Sunday 1st September at 11:11 am:

The Birmingham, Alabama, Twitter account for the NOAA National Weather Service tweets Alabama will not be affected by the storm: "Alabama will NOT see any impact of #Dorian." We repeat, no impact of the #Dorian hurricane will be felt across Alabama. # 39; ".

Sunday 1st September at 11:14 am:

Trump speaks to reporters outside the White House. He is again referring to new information on how Alabama will be affected by the storm. Again, NOAA does not provide any information of this type.

"The initial course was dead in Florida, now it seems to be going to South Carolina, North Carolina." Georgia is going to be affected. "Alabama is going to have a piece of it, it looks like," he says.

Sunday 1st September at 12:31 pm:

Trump speaks at a briefing at the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He is again referring to new, supposedly "unfortunate" information about a potential impact on Alabama.

"And, I'll say, the states – and that can become a little bit of a big place: it's called Alabama, and Alabama might even have at least some very strong winds and something more than that, it Unfortunately, this has just happened, it's the size of the storm we're talking about, so for Alabama, just be careful too, "he says.

Again, no current NOAA forecast shows that Alabama is likely to be affected.

Monday, September 2nd, 7:16 pm:

Asset tweets criticism of White House correspondent Jonathan Karl for ABC News, for his report on this saga.

Trump claims that he was right in his Sunday remarks, as "some original scenarios" had hinted that Alabama could be affected. But this statement is clearly contradicted by his three comments on Sunday, in which he suggested referring to new information.

Wednesday, September 4th, 2:38 pm:

Appearing in the Oval Office, Trump posts a NOAA forecast on the morning of Aug. 29 – modified by a roughly drawn black line that drives the hurricane forecast in Alabama. The unmodified version of this map did not have a black line and did not suggest a storm impact in Alabama.

Trump says that "Alabama was in the initial forecast," again ignoring that the state had not been in the predictions by the time he made his comments Sunday. And he says, "In any case, Alabama has been affected – if it is not lightly, in some cases, rather harshly." Georgia, Alabama – it was a different route They actually gave this probability a 95% probability. "

It's not clear who "they" are or what exactly he says "they" said that they had a 95% chance. NOAA has never given the storm a 95% chance of hitting Alabama.

Wednesday, September 4th, 6:23 pm:

Trump tweets a map of the South Florida Water Management District, which shows lines extending up to Alabama. The map is a so-called spaghetti model – containing projections from computer models that meteorologists incorporate into the creation of their forecasts – and not a prediction in itself. It is dated August 28, four days before Trump's Sunday comment.

He said, "It was the originally planned trajectory of the hurricane at its inception. As you can see, almost every model predicted that he would cross Florida, also hitting Georgia and Alabama. I accept the excuses of Fake News!

There are a lot of problems here.

Again, the map is not a forecast; they are raw information used to make forecasts. Again, Trump was not talking about obsolete forecasts when he made Sunday's comments on the media.

The map comes from a local entity, not from NOAA's National Hurricane Center – and the map itself indicates that the National Hurricane Center's notices "replace" what the map shows.

And it's not true that "almost every model" has shown the storm that has crossed Alabama. In fact, only a small minority of early models showed that the storm had crossed Alabama. Trump did not show any evidence that a spaghetti pattern at the time of his comments had any impact on Alabama.

Thursday 5th September at 10h16:

Eric Trump, the son of the president, tweets another card days before his father's Sunday comments.

This map, dated NOAA and dated August 29, concerns tropical tropical winds. It shows that three days before the president's speech Sunday, southeastern Alabama had 5% to 20% chance of experiencing strong winds causing tropical storms over the next five days, while in the south-east of Alabama there was a 5% to 20% chance of experiencing high winds causing tropical storms over the next five days, while a large part of the state had 0% chance.

Other states have indicated that at least one NOAA forecast that gave at least a 5% chance of experiencing tropical storm force winds included New York, New Jersey and Delaware, which the president has not mentioned at any time in his reflections Dorian.

Thursday, September 5 at 7:48 am:

Asset tweets again to criticize "false news" and defend himself. This time, he said that he was talking about "some models" when he said: "In one of the models crossing Florida, the Grand State of Alabama would have been touched or grazed ".

You know what we are going to say. Models showing that Alabama was "grazed" were out of date by the time he spoke on Sunday.

Thursday, September 5th, 1:03 pm:

The South Florida Water Management District sends a statement to CNN explaining that it produces "hundreds" of spaghetti parcels a day. "The parcels are updated every 15 minutes to capture updates in the public data used to produce the parcels," said the district.

Thursday, September 5th, 4:44 pm:

Asset tweets Some additional NOAA cards on August 29 and 30, three days and two days before his Sunday speech.

"Just as I said, it was initially expected that Alabama would be hit." The Fake News denies it! " he says.

These maps, however, showed that no part of Alabama was likely, even days before Trump's Sunday speech, to have more than a 30% chance of having tropical storm force winds. For most states, the odds were 0% to 20%.

And, again, that's not what Trump said on Sunday. These remarks, those covered by the media, concerned new presumed information, and not original projections.

Thursday, September 5th, 5:31 pm:

The White House issues a statement by Trump's Homeland Security Advisor, Rear-Admiral of the Coast Guard, Peter Brown. Brown said Trump made his comments Sunday after Brown gave the president a hurricane briefing that "included the possibility of high winds causing tropical storms in southeastern Alabama". Brown adds that the NOAA forecast until Monday, September 2, showed "the possibility" that such winds hit "parts of Alabama".

On Sunday and Monday, however, forecasts gave only 5% to 10% chance of being hit by tropical storm winds in part of Alabama.

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