Donald Trump's Hurricane Dorian Map Sharpie Edit

Submission 15,689

Part of a series on 2019 Hurricane Dorian. [View Related Entries]

About

Donald Trump's Hurricane Dorian Map Sharpie Edit refers to a series of image edits featuring an allegedly doctored map of Hurricane Dorian's path that United States President Donald Trump shared with reporters.

Origin

On August 29th, 2019, The White House shared an image of the president observing a map by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on their official Flickr ^[1] account (shown below). The map forecasts Hurricane Dorian's path, which does not include Alabama in the path.

Over the next few days, however, President Trump tweeted that Alabama was in the hurricane's path (shown below). On September 1st and 2nd, in a series of tweets,^[2]^[3] he wrote, "In addition to Florida – South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated. Looking like one of the largest hurricanes ever. Already category 5. BE CAREFUL! GOD BLESS EVERYONE! Such a phony hurricane report by lightweight reporter @jonkarl of @ABCWorldNews. I suggested yesterday at FEMA that, along with Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, even Alabama could possibly come into play, which WAS true. They made a big deal about this…when in fact, under certain original scenarios, it was in fact correct that Alabama could have received some “hurt.” Always good to be prepared! But the Fake News is only interested in demeaning and belittling. Didn’t play my whole sentence or statement. Bad people!"

In response to the President's tweets, on September 1st, the National Weather Service Birmingham Alabama tweeted,^[4] "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." Within five days, the tweet received more than 4,000 likes and 1,000 retweets (shown below).

On September 4th, 2019, the verified Twitter account of The White House shared a video of President Trump delivering updates on the hurricane's path. The map he holds, however, includes a black circle connecting the hurricane's path to Alabama. The post received more than 2.6 million views, 28,000 likes and 6,700 retweets in 24 hours (shown below).

President @realDonaldTrump gives an update on Hurricane #Dorian: pic.twitter.com/CmxAXHY5AO

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 4, 2019

Spread

Following the video's release, people accused the White House of doctoring the map. For example, Twitter^[5] user @wxdam tweeted, "The President of the United States altered a National Hurricane Center map with a sharpie to falsely extend the official forecast toward Alabama so he didn't have to admit he was wrong in a tweet." The tweet received more than 55,000 likes and 27,000 retweets in 24 hours (shown below, left).

@wxdam continued to tweet about the controversy, writing that such an alteration would be illegal (shown below, center). They wrote, "It is a violation of federal law to falsify a National Weather Service forecast and pass it off as official, as President Trump did here."

President Trump responded to allegations that he had doctored the map by tweeting another storm map. He wrote,^[15] "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!" Within 24 hours, the tweet received more than 50,000 likes and 12,000 retweets (shown below).

#Sharpiegate

The allegations that Trump had altered the image inspired mock manipulations of the map for humorous effect (example below, left). Additionally, people made image alterations to various other photographs of Trump-related history, which parody the idea that Trump had doctored the image to make himself look better. These mock edits were cataloged under the hashtag "#sharpiegate." For example, Twitter^[6] user @mark_novata tweeted an image of President Trump with a muscular physique drawn onto his body. The post received more than 7,900 likes and 2,200 retweets (shown below, center). Another drew stick figures onto the photographs from Trump's Inauguration (shown below, right).

Several media outlets covered the controversy and the corresponding memes, including Mashable, ^[7] Heavy,^[8] Washington Post,^[9] Newsweek,^[10] The Guardian,^[11] The Daily Beast,^[12] Complex,^[13] Politico^[14] and more.