West Chester state rep promotes link to weather conspiracy theory

WEST CHESTER, Ohio — A Butler County state representative posted on X a link to a conspiracy theory that the government was controlling the weather and directed where Hurricane Helene and the approaching Hurricane Milton would land.

Jennifer Gross, R-West Chester Twp., posted the link to the story with “Best Reporter. Great Read for naysayers. Worth your time.”

The Associated Press reported that Milton’s powerful push toward Florida just days after Helene devastated large parts of the Southeast likely has some in the region wondering if they are being targeted. In some corners of the internet, Helene has already sparked conspiracy theories and disinformation suggesting the government somehow aimed the hurricane at Republican voters.

Besides discounting common sense, such theories disregard weather history that shows the hurricanes are hitting many of the same areas they have for centuries. They also presume an ability for humans to quickly reshape the weather far beyond relatively puny efforts such as cloud-seeding.

“If meteorologists could stop hurricanes, we would stop hurricanes,” said Kristen Corbosiero, a professor of atmospheric and environmental sciences at the University at Albany. “If we could control the weather, we would not want the kind of death and destruction that’s happened.”

A fully developed hurricane releases heat energy that is the equivalent of a 10-megaton nuclear bomb every 20 minutes — more than all the energy used at a given time by humanity, according to National Hurricane Center tropical analysis chief Chris Landsea.

And scientists are now finding many ways climate change is making hurricanes worse, with warmer oceans that add energy and more water in the warming atmosphere to fall as rain, said Chris Field, director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

“The amount of energy a hurricane generates is insane,” said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. It’s the height of human arrogance to think people have the power to change them, he said.

The article Gross shared suggested that transmissions from the Next Generation Weather Radar system operated by the federal government can steer the direction of storms and are manipulating Milton to keep it in Florida.