Ginger Zee, ABC’s chief meteorologist, slammed a person who labeled her a “witch” over her coverage of Hurricane Milton, but they missed a crucial point about it.
Zee has been at the forefront of ABC News’ coverage of the devastating hurricane which has affected millions of people living in Florida.
She took to Instagram to share screenshots of messages she had received from a stranger in her inbox which criticized her and called her an “evil witch.”
The message included a video featuring Zee where she is speaking about cloud seeding—a process whereby clouds are injected with chemicals, to spark precipitation and is used in areas with little to no rainfall. Zee pointed out that the video was actually from April 2023, after the troll claimed in their message it proved a conspiracy theory that someone is controlling the weather and manipulating it to create major events, such as hurricanes, including Milton.
Zee was not willing to tolerate the misinformation and nasty message, so corrected their assertions in the caption section of her Instagram post.
“While I was busy helping to forecast/cover a hurricane… This clip from April 2023 was spreading the internet as ‘proof’ that Helene/Milton had been manipulated,” she began.
“Most importantly: these hurricanes were not manipulated, created or controlled. That is just not scientifically possible.”
She added: “This person saw this clip a year and a half late and applied it to what they had heard about hurricanes being manipulated.
“If you have come to my page to learn about weather, you are at the right place. If you have arrived with the lack of knowledge about basic science of our atmosphere, geography, physics and thermodynamics—I am here for you too.”
Zee then invited to “ask questions in the comments” and reinforced that, “these hurricanes were not touched by humans.”
“Unless you count the Gulf of Mexico’s temps which were 3-5 degrees above avg. Those have a human fingerprint on them since they absorb 90 percent of the excess heat we have made by trapping greenhouse gas emissions,” Zee wrote.
“It’s indirect so I still wouldn’t call it weather modification but let’s say weather amplification. So yes, thanks for bringing this up.”
She concluded by writing, “Just get it right and don’t call me a witch. That’s very 1692 of you…”
Newsweek contacted ABC News representatives by email for comment on Tuesday morning outside office hours.
Zee is no stranger to hitting back at trolls whether they are commenting on her looks or her work on ABC News.
Zee joined Good Morning America as the weekend meteorologist in 2011 before she was promoted to ABC News’ chief meteorologist in 2013. Along with being the network’s lead weather expert, Zee is also ABC’s chief climate correspondent.
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