NOAA flight took atmospheric measurements before Hurricane Milton, agency says

Context

A clip showing the flight path of a plane operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been shared on social media to suggest that Hurricane Milton, which made landfall in Florida on October 9, was created using cloud seeding. 

According to the Desert Research Institute, a non-profit research institute based in Nevada that researches cloud seeding, the practice aims to modify the weather by inducing rain or snow through the injection of ice nuclei into certain types of clouds. 

A clip is circulating showing the flight path of a plane under the callsign NOAA49, which flew around the Gulf of Mexico before Hurricane Milton breached the Florida coastline. 

One TikTok clip gathered more than 100,000 views and questioned the plane's path with a caption that reads, "A NOAA plane is cloud-seeding Hurricane Milton. This plane should be confiscated upon landing and the pilots arrested and interrogated. This is why we must have real leadership in America."

Another clip posted on Instagram shows an individual pointing to the flight path and saying, "What sort of flight path do you think this is? Obviously, they're cloud seeding."

The claim is part of a wider conspiracy theory narrative, addressed by Logically Facts, that Hurricane Milton was man-made using weather manipulation techniques. 

In fact

According to the agency's website, NOAA does indeed operate an aircraft under the callsign NOAA49 used for forecasting and research.  

In response to a request for comment about the online rumors, a spokesperson for NOAA told Logically Facts that the aircraft has been "conducting flights to take readings of the winds and other atmospheric conditions around Milton using weather probes called dropsondes and radar."

Such measurements help forecasters predict the storm's path, they said. 

NOAA published a YouTube clip about dropsondes in March. In the clip, they say that these instruments are dropped out of a plane during a flight into a storm to measure values including pressure, temperature, and humidity to help tell where a storm may go.

On October 7, the agency published a clip detailing the mission into Hurricane Milton, saying that they would release dropsondes to collect data in a bid to forecast the hurricane.

No evidence Hurricane Milton was created using cloud seeding, say experts

Meanwhile, experts told Logically Facts that there is no evidence Hurricane Milton was created using cloud seeding, as detailed in Logically Facts' article countering the conspiracy theories that have surfaced in the wake of both hurricanes. 

"There is not a shred of evidence that cloud seeding could create, intensify, steer, or otherwise control a gigantic weather system such as a hurricane," Scott Denning, professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, said to Logically Facts. 

According to NOAA, the agency ran cloud seeding experiments from the 1960s to the early 1980s to determine whether it would be possible to reduce the intensity of hurricanes but halted experiments after they did not work. 

Cloud seeding is primarily used to address water shortages, Laura Kuhl, associate professor of public policy, urban affairs and international affairs, said to Logically Facts, adding that even under ideal conditions, its effects are "small and the efficacy is questionable."

Both experts said that cloud seeding would not be capable of producing a weather event as strong as Hurricane Milton or Helene. They come after surface waters in the Gulf of Mexico experienced warm surface temperatures, as per data released by NASA.

Kuh said, "The enormous strength and intensity of Hurricane Milton and Helene is due to hot water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, and is consistent with models of the impacts of climate change."

"In that sense, yes, both hurricanes are associated with weather modification: human-induced modification of the climate system through the burning of fossil fuels." 

The verdict

NOAA said to Logically Facts that a jet flew around the Gulf of Mexico to collect data to forecast Hurricane Milton, not to create the hurricane. Experts told Logically Facts that there is no evidence that the hurricane was created using cloud seeding. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.