The August 19th, 2005 Tornado Hoax

jeeff: 31st Aug 2005 - 06:49 GMT

ps. of course if the source can be established for any of these photos, i'd like to post it.

Peter: 31st Aug 2005 - 17:04 GMT

www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/permalink/storm_near_bunbury

some info that claims it happened in australia, heh.

Joel: 11th Sep 2005 - 23:57 GMT

I was looking for some pictures of the tornado in fergus, although these arn't pictures of fergus, there was (without a doubt) two F 2 tornados that touched down in the Fergus Belwood area, and as an FYI, there has been around 6 tornados in the Fergus-Belwood area in the past 20 years, the tornados that landed did 400 million dollars of damage, the largest natural disaster claim in Ontario's history

jeeff: 12th Sep 2005 - 00:38 GMT

yeah, the site i linked in the article has lots of information about the real touch-down.

the tornado(s) didn't cause anywhere near $400 million damage, that's the damage tally from the effects of the entire storm across a wide area of ontario. no doubt the entire town of fergus isn't worth $400,000,000.

kay left in the dark after the storm: 12th Sep 2005 - 22:46 GMT

anyone who doesnt think it did alot of damage, i wish you were here the day after the storm... all the people with no roof's and all the people with no power... there are alot of trees in centre wellignton and they all seemed to land on the electrical wires. and most of farmers corn was flattned to the ground. it was a cornado!!! hahaha

sean: 15th Sep 2005 - 03:46 GMT

Most (or all) of the pics above can be found here: http://extremeinstability.com/2004.htm

The guy is a storm-chaser in the US midwest, so the pics are legit. It seems whenever a tornado or severe weather hits an area, these pictures pop up soon after.

anon (CPE0080c6e9af25-CM000a73a089b5.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com): 6th Jan 2006 - 21:48 GMT

what will it be like in the year 2006

anon (205-200-236-19.static.mts.net): 21st Feb 2006 - 21:07 GMT

Thesetornados are really cool,but I bet you that they are not fun to be in are they.

cristina: 24th Mar 2006 - 00:28 GMT

oh my god i love storms but those would even make me run. Very cool

Cassandra: 6th Apr 2006 - 01:47 GMT

I would just like to say, you may be trying to prove something about it not existing but in fact. It did exist, why? Because it just so happened to have torn up my uncle's farm, the skys were litterally black and green. This is no hoax, it was real. I'll admit that yellow skied one about 6 pictures down is definatly not Ontario. But those other pictures look pretty friggin close.

jeeff: 6th Apr 2006 - 14:21 GMT

ok let me make this as clear as possible.

I AM SAYING THAT THE PHOTOS ARE A HOAX. this is a a proven fact. read the comments.

lisa: 7th Apr 2006 - 05:22 GMT

i dont know if these pics are really from that place and time or not but i lived if fergus my whole life up untill the past 2 years which ive lived in guelph and i can tell ya right now that there were LOTS of times i spent hiding in the basement due to the winds screaming and the clouds forming so weird, and the shys giving off that earry feeling! even if they arnt real i know that something huge happened that day!

Peter: 2nd May 2006 - 16:51 GMT

I live in Fergus and although wasn't there at the exact time of the tornado I seen the damage and helped in the clean-up that is still going on til this day. there are still houses without roofs and forest lay in ruins, I do however agree with Jeeff that these pictures are a hoax. Go here http://www.ontarioweather.com/SPECIALS/stormchasing/2005/fergustornado.asp scroll to the bottom of the page to the photos. these are infact real pictures of the damage.

nito: 5th May 2006 - 09:11 GMT

was there or not a tornado in your home/valley?or what.

Al: 22nd Jul 2006 - 21:09 GMT

Well, the famous photos of dubious origin have appeared again, this time billed as Photos of Katrina over Mississippi. The copies I have are dated 2004 and were said to have been taken in Southern Alberta, Canada. Hmm.

Lou: 6th Nov 2006 - 23:22 GMT

Real photos; inaccurate description.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/storm.asp
Storm Clouds

Claim: Photographs show Hurricane Katrina hitting the Gulf Coast in August 2005.

Status: Real photos; inaccurate description.

Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2005]

Photos of Katrina over Mississippi

(Sure let's you know who's in charge.)

These pictures were made by a man in Magee , MS where the eye of the storm passed thru - what an experience.

Magee is 150 miles North of Waveland , Mississippi where the Hurricane made land fall.

The dance with Katrina, part of her beauty as she left destruction on her exit. They are remarkably dramatic.

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Origins: When readers started forwarding these photographs to us just after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, our first thought was that the scenes depicted in these images didn't look like either a hurricane or the Gulf Coast. Our second thought was that we've seen these pictures before — many times.

Indeed, these pictures are apparently all-purpose storm photos, trotted out on a near monthly basis and retitled to correspond to the latest large weather phenomenon. These photographs have now been circulated as depicting:

* Australian tornadoes, May 2005
* Severe storms in southern Alberta, July 2005
* Severe storms and tornadoes in Ontario, August 2005
* Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama), August 2005

These images are actually photographs of tornadoes and other extreme weather phenomena taken by storm chaser Mike Hollingshead in Nebraska and Kansas during the summer months of 2002 and 2004. Some of these photos are viewable on the 2004 Digital Photos section of his web site (scroll about halfway down the page).

*******
...The person who actually took the photos.....

http://extremeinstability.com/2004.htm
At his site...Mike writes:

News--9-1-06: Added a section in 2006 with some old photos.

Since I still get e-mails about the whole "Hurricane Katrina" chain-mail I figured I had better put something up on here. They are my photos and were not taken of a hurricane or anywhere near a gulf. Here's a quick couple links for urban legends of it: SNOPES and URBAN LEGENDS.ABOUT.COM. Many other similar things came from all that and I made a page about it but got burned out on the whole thing. I stopped linking that page as it all slowed down a bit. Now that I'm getting some e-mails about those I figured I'd put those two links up real quick.

chucky from va: 14th Mar 2007 - 00:20 GMT

you are the best photgrapher I have ever seen in my life. I feel realy sorry for the people who was in the storm. my great grandma and me said it was the jackpot 20,000,000 for my science projaect. me and my great grandma and my freinds nicolas,michaela,casey would like to thank you for taking these pictures.

jeri from OH. april 13th: 13th Apr 2007 - 18:26 GMT

ooow!!!..these are some pretty tornadoes pictures..my favorite one was the blue picture..it was gorgeous!!?!!..now my next favorite was the one right above it..who ever took these i love them! and caongradulations on some great pictures!

Josh from Western Australia: 7th May 2007 - 08:23 GMT

out of curiosity, most of these lovely storm cells were photographs taken in Australia.

Enjoy the searching for the real thing

neil from fergus ontario: 16th May 2007 - 02:08 GMT

great pictures however i didn't see the F2's (2 of them) touch down I did help out in the aftermath. It really did happen!

tornado chaser Lincoln Neb: 12th Feb 2008 - 16:47 GMT

super pictures makes mine look bad :)

tornado chaser Lincoln Neb: 12th Feb 2008 - 16:49 GMT

I got the Halem torado on tape, I was their in my house when it happend

karina: 9th Mar 2008 - 18:51 GMT

Hi.Great pictures.I can't believe how good they are.