A frightening hurricane map can travel around social media in minutes. Alabama meteorologist James Spann says knowing who is behind such posts — and when to ignore them — matters.
Speaking Saturday at the United Way & Verizon Disaster Resilience Forum at the National Maritime Museum of the Gulf in Mobile, Spann warned Alabamians about sensational weather posts that can spread rapidly online, sometimes with real-world consequences.
He pointed to a social media post in May warning of a “killer hurricane” headed toward Florida. The post was false but was shared millions of times.
“We had people that cancelled beach vacations. We had people that cancelled elective surgery because some nitwit put this on Facebook and there is absolutely no truth to this, none whatsoever,” Spann said.
He told the audience there can also be a financial incentive behind some attention-grabbing posts. “They put this stuff out there to gain money from the creator content fund and we now live in a cesspool of disinformation,” Spann said.
For Spann, one warning sign of disinformation is a post claiming to know where a hurricane will be well into the future. He said there is “no skill” in making hurricane forecasts 10 days in advance and cautioned that while weather models can provide useful guidance, they are not crystal balls.
Instead, Spann urged people to turn first to credible sources, including the National Hurricane Center, the Mobile County Emergency Management Agency and his own statewide weather network. He also recommended listening to certified meteorologists, acknowledging they will not always get every forecast right but saying they are more trustworthy than many weather accounts on TikTok, Instagram, X and Facebook.
The message aligns with a project Spann launched just last year. Spann, who has worked as a professional meteorologist since 1978, announced his own statewide weather network in July 2025, fulfilling what he called a longtime dream of providing weather coverage for the entire state. The 24/7 digital network was created to serve all 67 Alabama counties.
His experience with Alabama weather stretches back decades, including one storm etched into Gulf Coast history. Spann told the Mobile audience that Hurricane Frederic, which struck the Alabama coast in September 1979, was the first hurricane he covered in his career. He recalled reporting on the storm from Azalea Middle School — now Denton Magnet School of Technology — where he had access to a working telephone.
Nearly five decades later, the technology used to track and communicate hurricane threats has changed dramatically. So has the speed at which bad information can spread.
Spann also addressed the current hurricane season, telling the audience the Gulf had been fortunate so far and expressing confidence that what remains of the season could be “relatively quiet.” He pushed back on sensational predictions surrounding El Niño, saying the online “hype is off the charts.”
But a quieter season is no reason to stop paying attention, he said. His advice was to identify a credible source before a storm threatens and to resist relying on questionable hurricane pages that appear on social media. Even in a year that may ultimately prove relatively quiet, Spann offered a reminder familiar to anyone who has lived through hurricane season on the Gulf Coast:
“All it takes is one.”