Hurricane Nadine didn’t exist as of Oct. 10, but a fictional article about one did

As Hurricane Milton moved away from Florida, some social media users spread rumors about the next potential storm that could be named Nadine. 

Nadine is next on the list of 2024 Atlantic tropical cyclone names and would be the year’s 14th hurricane. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted 17 to 25 storms with winds of 39 miles per hour or higher would hit the United States during the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs June 1 to Nov. 30. But as of Oct. 10, the National Hurricane Center wasn’t monitoring any developing storm systems near the United States, The Associated Press reported.

Still, text spreading online appears to describe a Hurricane Nadine in the past tense. Some Instagram users concluded this was evidence that such storms are planned. 

"Hurricane Nadine was a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane that struck Central America and the Bahamas in October 2024," the text says. It goes on to describe a storm that formed on Oct. 20 and "reached its peak strength on October 28, 2024, with sustained winds of 175 mph."

"WTF??" a description of the text says. "It’s only 10/9/24!!! How are they saying it happened (past tense) 10/28/24."

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Facebook posts

stated on September 27, 2024 in a video

Shows video of damage from Hurricane Helene.

An Instagram post sharing the text was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

This text isn’t evidence that a forthcoming hurricane is planned, or that the writer is a time-traveler and knows something we don’t. 

It comes from a website called "Hypothetical Hurricanes Wiki," which warns that its content "is fictional and NOT a resource for real tropical cyclones." 

The wiki was created as a place where "hurricane enthusiasts could make articles for hurricanes that have come to their imagination." 

The site spawned similar suspicions before Hurricane Milton made landfall when social media users pointed to an April article about a hurricane also named Milton that had purportedly caused "catastrophic damage in Mexico and then Florida."

Hurricane Nadine wasn’t a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane, because as of Oct. 10, it never existed. We rate this claim False.