As Hurricane Irene comes ashore in New Jersey, with New York City in its sights, the most retweeted photo of Irene over North Carolina is a flat-out fake. But an impressive one :
That this photo is a fak is irrevelant to many who tweet, send and circulate it on, they just want to blow their friends' minds. But why are so many American and international news shows and websites promoting it as real? So far, Hurricane Irene has delivered no truly jaw-dropping photos, outside of satellite images of the storm, the news companies need an image like the above, and to many of them, too, the fact it's a fake matters not. It's spectacular, it's popular on Twitter, so it's real.
Or real enough.
But it's actually a shelf cloud. Hurricanes simply don't look like that. They're big windy, rainy storms, that look in photos like big windy, rainy storms.
If you want to photoshop a shelf cloud over your town or coastfront, there are dozens here to choose from.
At least 12 people appear to have been killed as a result of Hurricane Irene sweeping up the east coast of the United States. The first victim was a man who fell off a ladder trying to board up his windows.
