Less than an hour after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Taylor County rather than due south of Tallahassee as forecast, a parody account for the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory took credit for the sudden, seemingly inexplicable turn.
“This is what I do,” someone known as “The Magnet” on X/Twitter posted alongside a radar image of Helene spinning away from the Capital City.
The MagLab, a cutting-edge facility in Innovation Park that houses the biggest and most powerful magnets on planet Earth, has done more than merely advance science over the years. It has launched countless punchlines and memes and made more than a few believers about its much-touted but entirely fictional weather-control powers.
The comments tend to go into overdrive after a squall line fizzles out or a hurricane changes path instead of hitting Tallahassee. Helene made the MagLab go viral once again.
“The absurd conspiracy I will always believe — the Mag Lab is Tallahassee’s weather shield,” Steve Schale, a longtime Democratic political consultant, said in an X post just after landfall.
On Monday, state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, a former chair of the state GOP, suggested a legislative fix to better harness the MagLab’s supposed powers, name-dropping Schale in the process.
“I am currently working with @steveschale on legislation that would move the FSU Magnet to the middle of the Gulf of Mexico to steer future storms into the Atlantic,” Ingoglia joked on X.
No force was able to stop Hurricane Hermine in 2016 or the freak thunderstorms of May 10 that spun off three tornadoes simultaneously, one of which damaged the facility and prompted officials to shut down the magnets for a week.
In a 2017 interview with the Democrat, former MagLab Director Greg Boebinger flatly debunked the idea that magnetic forces were keeping storms away.
“I think people know we have the world’s most powerful magnetic fields; they know they have strong forces attached and so people think we can do battle with the weather,” Boebinger said. “The amount of energy we control is nothing compared to the amount of energy in the smallest of thunderstorms. Hurricanes are way out of our league.”
But some people are convinced the MagLab holds secret sway over the atmosphere. Robert “Hawk” Hawken, a lobbyist and political consultant, said Tallahassee hasn’t seen major hurricane destruction since Kate in 1985.
“It just makes me think maybe there is more to it than a ‘conspiracy theory.’ Whether they can turn it up or turn it down or whatnot, I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t really know what goes on out there.”
Forecasters with the National Weather Service in Tallahassee said that Hurricane Helene went further east than anticipated because of an upper-level cutoff low that helped steer it away and a cold front that came through at just the right time.
Meteorologist Ryan Truchelut of WeatherTiger gave a deadpan response when asked by a reporter whether the MagLab played any role in the hurricane moving east.
“The MagLab to me suffered a career-ending loss during the tornadoes,” he quipped.
Arianna Otero contributed. Contact Jeff Burlew at [email protected] or 850-599-2180.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Helene prompts jokes, memes about FSU MagLab repelling hurricanes
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