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HUNTSVILLE, AL -
You've seen the email forwards from someone else in cyberspace. Maybe your mom, dad, spouse or a friend has sent it to you with the words 'wait till you see this!'.
Are these photos real? In many cases, no. Or, they are real, but they don't show the actual event the senders claims. These photos have actually been going around for years.
WHNT NEWS 19 Chief Meteorologist Dan Satterfield posted something on his Wild Wild Science Journal recently, titled "How to Make Your Local Meteorologist Very Happy." It talks about fake weather photos. You wouldn't believe how many times people email us these photos, especially during severe weather.
The emails are pretty common. One popular one claims the pictures attached show the outer edges of Hurricane Katrina. If you've seen this email, it's certainly a real storm, but it's definitely not a hurricane.
"First of all, when a hurricane makes landfall, you know, you're gonna get a lot of wind, you're going to get an extreme storm surge," said Chris Darden, the Science Operations Officer at the National Weather Service in Huntsville. "You know, it's not going to be sunny out there, it's not going to look like a super cell thunderstorm like these look like."
Darden says people send in these same photos all the time -- even colleagues he wouldn't expect.
"We had several scientists that passed these along, which is personally frustrating to me, but these have been passed around numerous times -- these are pictures of super cells out in the Plains."
The photos we're referring to were actually taken by Mike Hollingshead in 2004. You can see more of them on his web site, Extremeinstability.com.
Another photo we see quite a bit claims to be the edge of Hurricane Isabel, taken from a ship stationed nearby. It's a real storm, but Darden says it's definitely not a hurricane.
"It's a very nice photo, actually, I think it's maybe a photo of a decaying thunderstorm or shelf cloud moving out ahead of a storm," said Darden.
See all of the pictured mentioned in this story in our photo gallery to the left of this story.
Another one we've seen lately shows a funnel cloud next to a large lightning bolt. Hundreds of you emailed it to us in February 2008 when a tornado hit Pisgah, Alabama. Each of your emails claimed 'a friend of a friend' took it. Wrong.
Fred Smith of Lake Okeechobee, Florida took this photo in the early 1990s. It shows a water spout next to a large lightning bolt.
WHNT NEWS 19 spoke with Smith by phone.
"When you saw this, did you think that's a water spout, or did you think that was a tornado?" asked Chief Meteorologist Dan Satterfield.
"Well, actually, I was set up with a camera already, and I just happened to catch a glimpse of a shadow to my left, and when it lightninged, I could tell it was a water spout," said Smith. "So I just focused in on it and I opened the shutter, and I got my photo."
Smith took the photo on a Canon camera. He won an award for it in the early 1990s, and the photo was also featured in National Geographic magazine.
However, it started making the Internet rounds after it was featured in Popular Photography in 1992.
"So people have grabbed this picture off one of those magazines, right?" asked Satterfield.
"Either that, or I had sold some copies of pictures, different ones, so they probably got it off a photo I have, an 8x10," said Smith.
Are these photos real? In many cases, no. Or, they are real, but they don't show the actual event the senders claims. These photos have actually been going around for years.
WHNT NEWS 19 Chief Meteorologist Dan Satterfield posted something on his Wild Wild Science Journal recently, titled "How to Make Your Local Meteorologist Very Happy." It talks about fake weather photos. You wouldn't believe how many times people email us these photos, especially during severe weather.
The emails are pretty common. One popular one claims the pictures attached show the outer edges of Hurricane Katrina. If you've seen this email, it's certainly a real storm, but it's definitely not a hurricane.
"First of all, when a hurricane makes landfall, you know, you're gonna get a lot of wind, you're going to get an extreme storm surge," said Chris Darden, the Science Operations Officer at the National Weather Service in Huntsville. "You know, it's not going to be sunny out there, it's not going to look like a super cell thunderstorm like these look like."
Darden says people send in these same photos all the time -- even colleagues he wouldn't expect.
"We had several scientists that passed these along, which is personally frustrating to me, but these have been passed around numerous times -- these are pictures of super cells out in the Plains."
The photos we're referring to were actually taken by Mike Hollingshead in 2004. You can see more of them on his web site, Extremeinstability.com.
Another photo we see quite a bit claims to be the edge of Hurricane Isabel, taken from a ship stationed nearby. It's a real storm, but Darden says it's definitely not a hurricane.
"It's a very nice photo, actually, I think it's maybe a photo of a decaying thunderstorm or shelf cloud moving out ahead of a storm," said Darden.
See all of the pictured mentioned in this story in our photo gallery to the left of this story.
Another one we've seen lately shows a funnel cloud next to a large lightning bolt. Hundreds of you emailed it to us in February 2008 when a tornado hit Pisgah, Alabama. Each of your emails claimed 'a friend of a friend' took it. Wrong.
Fred Smith of Lake Okeechobee, Florida took this photo in the early 1990s. It shows a water spout next to a large lightning bolt.
WHNT NEWS 19 spoke with Smith by phone.
"When you saw this, did you think that's a water spout, or did you think that was a tornado?" asked Chief Meteorologist Dan Satterfield.
"Well, actually, I was set up with a camera already, and I just happened to catch a glimpse of a shadow to my left, and when it lightninged, I could tell it was a water spout," said Smith. "So I just focused in on it and I opened the shutter, and I got my photo."
Smith took the photo on a Canon camera. He won an award for it in the early 1990s, and the photo was also featured in National Geographic magazine.
However, it started making the Internet rounds after it was featured in Popular Photography in 1992.
"So people have grabbed this picture off one of those magazines, right?" asked Satterfield.
"Either that, or I had sold some copies of pictures, different ones, so they probably got it off a photo I have, an 8x10," said Smith.
