A viral Facebook post titled “Significant Storm System To Affect 100+ Million People,” and says heavy snow, heavy ice, flooding, and will bring severe weather appears to be a hoax.
“SIGNIFICANT STORM SYSTEM 100+ MILLION PEOPLE! THIS COULD BE THE BIGGEST STORM OF THE YEAR,” it also reads. “SHARES REQUESTED AS THIS COULD BE A MASSIVE STORM SYSTEM!”
The photo was from NortheastUSWeather.com, and it shows most of the entire U.S. being affected by the potential storm.
However, The Weather Channel and Accuweather are predicting a relatively major storm system across the Midwest and Northeast starting Saturday and ending Monday. But it doesn’t appear out of the ordinary.
The traffic to the website appears to have taken it down on Wednesday.
“WEBSITE DOWN OFF AND ON TODAY: We are CURRENTLY BUILDING A SERVER FARM instead of a single server today in order to prepare for the surge in visitors tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday ... beyond,” it reads.
According to reports, the page had tens of thousands of “likes” on Facebook, with most coming in only a few hours.
Before it was taken down, a Facebook page said, “Our mission is to provide fast, accurate and reliable weather forecast that you cannot find anywhere else on Facebook! Our mission is to reach 25,000 likes by April of 2014!”
According to Mediaite, “Further down they explain that the site was started by two high school students, a fact that is continuously brought up in the surprising number of arguments on their Facebook posts. It’s just kids trying their best, the fans say. Never mind that their explanations sound like they are written by someone for whom English is not a first language. That’s either indication of a foreign phishing expedition, or, okay, perhaps more likely, just kids being illiterate.”
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