Researchers looking into the damage from a storm that affected London, Ont., last week discovered that two photos claiming to show tornadoes were actually created by artificial intelligence.
Team members from the Northern Tornadoes Project at Western University mentioned in a Facebook post on Saturday that these fakes were “obvious” to identify.
“Folks, AI-generated photos and images from previous storms depicting tornadoes are now frequently shared during storm events. Why people do this is hard to fathom. It’s also likely illegal,” the post states.
“If you receive a photo of a tornado during or after a storm that isn’t from a reliable source, please think twice before passing it along. Increasingly, that photo will probably have been altered.”
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Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won’t miss a trending story. The researchers noted one of the images, captured from a car, showed what was said to be a tornado near London International Airport. However, they pointed out that the actual damage in east London was located south of there. Story continues below “The official weather observers at the airport did not see or report any tornado or funnel cloud (we checked). Also, meteorologically, tornadoes don’t tend to form in the part of the storm depicted,” the post reads. “We conclude, based on the evidence, that the tornado was added to a real photo.” More on Canada More videos The staff mentioned that another image taken from a balcony showed what appeared to be a tornado north of the city towards Arva. “Again, there was no damage reported or found there, and radar shows no rotation in that area,” they explained. “We conclude, based on the evidence, that the tornado was again added to a real photo.” The researchers determined that two tornadoes and one downburst struck the London area on May 19. The downburst caused up to EF1 damage stretching from east London to Dorchester while one tornado inflicted EF1 damage from Lambeth through south London toward Mossley. A second brief tornado resulted in EF0 damage in Melbourne, which is southwest of London. & copy 2026 , a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.Source link
