Trump clings to idea Alabama faced big threat from Dorian
U.S. president displays altered forecast map to back up his claim, which was refuted by meteorologists
U.S. President Donald Trump isn't giving up on the dubious idea that Alabama faced a serious threat from Hurricane Dorian — something meteorologists refuted after he said it on the weekend.
During an Oval Office briefing Wednesday, Trump displayed a map of the National Hurricane Center forecast for last Thursday that showed Dorian could track over Florida. The map he displayed included what appeared to be a hand-drawn half-circle that extended the cone of uncertainty over a swath of Alabama.
Trump had raised eyebrows and drawn an emphatic fact check from the National Weather Service on Sunday when he tweeted that Alabama, along with the Carolinas and Georgia, "will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated."
The National Weather Service in Birmingham, Alabama, tweeted in response: "Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east."
Alabama will NOT see any impacts from <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Dorian?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Dorian</a>. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Dorian?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Dorian</a> will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/alwx?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#alwx</a>
—@NWSBirminghamFew, if any, meteorologists put Alabama in the hurricane's path. Asked Sunday if Trump had been briefed about potential impact to Alabama, Christopher Vaccaro, a spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, wrote in an email, "The current forecast path of Dorian does not include Alabama."
On Monday, Trump pushed back on skeptics by insisting that "under certain original scenarios, it was in fact correct that Alabama could have received some 'hurt.'"
Then on Wednesday Trump displayed the graphic with the alteration that showed the storm could have tracked over Alabama.
Trump had no explanation for who had altered the map.
But he told reporters, "I know that Alabama was in the original forecast."
He added: "Actually, we have a better map than that which is going to be presented, where we had many lines going directly — many models, each line being a model — and they were going directly through. And in all cases Alabama was hit, if not lightly, in some cases pretty hard."
In fact, forecasts from overnight last Friday showed a small sliver of Alabama at the edge of the five-day cone of uncertainty. But by Saturday morning — more than 24 hours before Trump's warning about Alabama — the storm was predicted to pose no threat to the state. Trump was getting multiple daily briefings about the storm.
The White House did not immediately release any additional maps.