Social media claims have said hurricanes were controlled to wreak havoc on pro-Republican regions, to disrupt the upcoming US election. Several accounts said both Hurricane Helene and Milton were “unnatural” storms.

Hurricane Milton is the second powerful storm to have made landfall in Florida just two weeks, after Hurricane Helene devastated communities in six US states. Numerous social media users have claimed that both storms were caused by humans and specifically targeted pro-Republican counties ahead of the presidential election on November 5.

Claim: “Hurricane Milton just made another near-impossible shift” claims this user on X calling on his over 2 million followers to share his video “before they take it down.” He’s shared the same post a handful of times. “What are the chances of 2 freak storms right before an election?” he asks. “This is not even close to a normal-looking storm,” he said in a video on the platform Rumble, insinuating cloud seeding had influenced the storm. “Yes, they can control the weather,” claimed Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, an ardent supporter of Republican nominee  Donald Trump, just days earlier. Her tweet has since been viewed over 43 million time

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DW fact check: False.

The shift is called eyewall replacement cycle, and is a normal occurrence in hurricanes of this magnitude. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 had also formed a double eyewall before hitting the coast and was about to undergo an eyewall replacement cycle, scientists found. As the inner wall weakened, the outer one gained strength, picking up intensity.

“In addition to large and rapid intensity swings, eyewall replacement cycles usually cause hurricanes to grow larger,” hurricane experts explained.

Aircraft from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) repeatedly fly into the storms to collect atmospheric data. NOAA already said back in May that it was predicting above-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin this year.

“We have had unlucky stretches before with back-to-back storms,” meteorologist Matthew Cappucci told DW. In 2004, four hurricanes hit Florida within a six-week period. “We had Hurricane Charley which hit us as a Category 4 in Fort Myers, Florida back on August 13 of that year, then we had Jeanne and Frances, all those storms,” he added.

Scientists with World Weather Attribution, who use established climate models to quickly determine whether human-caused climate change has played a part in extreme weather events, explained that “climate change is enhancing conditions conducive to the most powerful hurricanes like Helene, with more intense rainfall totals and wind speeds.”

News Source: DW News