They can control the weather

[Jersey Girl]

Who are 'they', I wonder?

Well, in all fairness, the Jewish people have been changing the weather since Biblical times:

That ain't nothing. Trump can nuke a hurricane. No really.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Trump will get rid of the NOAA under 2025, by the way.

- Doc

[Dr. Shades]

Conspiracy theories about government technology aside, considering the Atlantic current, how DOES a tropical storm / hurricane begin in the Gulf of Mexico and go east?

[Xenophon]

Conspiracy theories about government technology aside, considering the Atlantic current, how DOES a tropical storm / hurricane begin in the Gulf of Mexico and go east?

This was about the most concise and illustrative example I could find: https://www.nbc-2.com/article/hurricane ... s/62523089 .

From the report:

Stronger winds in the upper parts of the atmosphere make it tougher for a storm to become and remain vertically organized. It's only when wind shear is low that a storm can develop and get stronger.

So, as the strong wind shear stays north of Milton at least through Monday, it'll very slowly move toward the east.

Milton's forward motion is expected to increase on Tuesday and Wednesday because the steering currents will evolve, just like the storm.

Because of the arrival of a cold front in the northern Gulf, the steering current motion will be one to encourage Milton to both pick up speed and move in a more northeastward direction.

You can see that arriving cold front in the upper left-hand corner of the map below.

[Res Ipsa]

The primary global wind pattern across the U.S. is west to east. The primary wind pattern across the Atlantic from the coast of Africa to the Caribbean is east to west. The boundaries aren't fixed, and depend on the location of steering currents around highs (clockwise) and lows (counterclockwise).

Hurricanes that form in the east Atlantic travel west until they get to the caribbean where they run into the fluctuating boundary between the trade winds flowing west and the prevailing us westerlies flowing east. Sometimes Atlantic Hurricanes keep going west into Mexico. Sometimes they curve toward the north and then to the east. If they turn north, they nearly always end up eventually going east, either as tropical or extratropical storms, steered by the prevailing westerlies.

Every hurricane season, some hurricanes also form off the east and west coasts of Mexico. Where those that form in the Western Gulf of Mexico go is entirely dependent on the shifting boundary between the easterly trade winds and the prevailing westerlies, together with the location of high and low pressure systems. Hurricane formation in the western gulf of Mexico is normal and expected. West to East movement of a hurricane formed in the western gulf is entirely normal and expected .

The guy that lived on the Gulf is a classic illustration of conspiratorial thinking. He may have lived on the Gulf, but he hasn't paid attention. If he's convinced that our government and shadowy elites conspire against conservatives, then he is focussed on "anomalies" instead of the body of evidence. He thinks he's found one because he never stops to consider what he might not know. Then he jumps straight to conspiracy theory instead of spending a few minutes on Google learning stuff that were taught in my high school earth sciences class.

It's the same thing as the Great Northwest Windshield Pitting Panic of 1954, which I linked to in another thread. Someone noticed small pits in their windshield. As word spread, hundreds of people began reporting that someone or something recent had made pits in their windshield. The windshield pit plague spread from the small town where I grew up to Vancouver in the north and Portland in the south. Scientists were consulted. Law enforce investigated.

The result: the small pits had always been there. No one had noticed them. https://www.historylink.org/File/5136

Hurricanes have always formed in the western Gulf and moved east. If you didn't know that, you simply never paid attention to where hurricanes form and how they travel.

[canpakes]

Conspiracy theories about government technology aside, considering the Atlantic current, how DOES a tropical storm / hurricane begin in the Gulf of Mexico and go east?

Right-wing crazed conspiracy-Xitting Koolaid drinkers aside, the following have also supposedly run this same path:

Alex
Nicholas
Beta
Nestor
Olga

What’s up with the strong overlap between the group of folks who believe that climate can’t be affected by mankind’s activities with the group of folks who believe that the government is controlling the weather?

[Manetho]

What’s up with the strong overlap between the group of folks who believe that climate can’t be affected by mankind’s activities with the group of folks who believe that the government is controlling the weather?

A lot of climate change denial is motivated by a belief that vaguely defined "elites" are trying to force ordinary people to change their lifestyle. Therefore, climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the villainous elite. Believing that the villainous elite can control the weather is simply a more extreme version of the same conspiratorial mindset.

[Res Ipsa]

Conspiracy theories about government technology aside, considering the Atlantic current, how DOES a tropical storm / hurricane begin in the Gulf of Mexico and go east?

Right-wing crazed conspiracy-Xitting Koolaid drinkers aside, the following have also supposedly run this same path:

Alex
Nicholas
Beta
Nestor
Olga

What’s up with the strong overlap between the group of folks who believe that climate can’t be affected by mankind’s activities with the group of folks who believe that the government is controlling the weather?

Compartmentalization.

[Dr. Shades]

Hurricanes have always formed in the western Gulf and moved east. If you didn't know that, you simply never paid attention to where hurricanes form and how they travel.

Then I guess you’ll have to count me among that group. My excuse is that I don’t recall ever seeing a chart or radar image compilation of a hurricane moving anywhere other than east to west.

But as always, just because I haven’t seen something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

[Res Ipsa]

Hurricanes have always formed in the western Gulf and moved east. If you didn't know that, you simply never paid attention to where hurricanes form and how they travel.

Then I guess you’ll have to count me among that group. My excuse is that I don’t recall ever seeing a chart or radar image compilation of a hurricane moving anywhere other than east to west.

But as always, just because I haven’t seen something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Knowing what you don't know is always a good thing.