President Donald Trump has displayed what appears to be an altered hurricane map to show Alabama in the path of storm Dorian.
Mr Trump held up a weather map in the Oval Office which seems to show a black marker half circle extending the forecast of the storm’s path into the southeastern corner of Alabama.
Asked about the map at a later event, Mr Trump insisted he did not know anything about it and had no explanation for who altered the map.
However, he insisted that “Alabama was in the original forecast”.
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. #alwx
— NWS Birmingham (@NWSBirmingham) September 1, 2019
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… in all cases, Alabama was hit.”
Forecasts from overnight last Friday showed a small sliver of Alabama at the edge of the five-day cone of uncertainty.
This was the originally projected path of the Hurricane in its early stages. As you can see, almost all models predicted it to go through Florida also hitting Georgia and Alabama. I accept the Fake News apologies! pic.twitter.com/0uCT0Qvyo6
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2019
But by Saturday morning, more than 24 hours before Mr Trump’s first warning about Alabama, the storm was predicted to pose no threat to the state.
The president has been given multiple daily briefings about the storm.
“As you can see, almost all models predicted it to go through Florida also hitting Georgia and Alabama. I accept the Fake News apologies!”
