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Politics20 outlets ran this3 min read

White House thanks Trump for quiet hurricane season

Social media users across the political spectrum mocked the post, which came amid a historically calm Atlantic season.

AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made

Published Updated
White House thanks Trump for quiet hurricane season

What this story says

  • The White House's Rapid Response 47 account on X posted "Thank you, President Trump!" in response to a meteorologist's observation of no hurricanes forming in the North Atlantic Ocean in 2026.
  • Meteorologist Chris Martz noted the lack of hurricanes, stating "history has been made" due to the quiet season.
  • The White House post was met with widespread mockery on social media from users across the political spectrum.
  • Scientists attribute the calm hurricane season to a powerful El Niño pattern, which creates conditions hostile to storm formation.

Who covered it

Left 58%(8)Centre 17%(5)Right 25%(2)

Percentages are shares of the 15 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. 5 of the 20 outlets we know ran this story carry no rating and are not counted in them. Coverage measured .

Trust

42/100

Craft

61/100

Hype

68/100

20 sources · methodology

Missing from the right

Only 2 of the 15 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated right.

A reader who follows the right would not have seen this. We report the absence rather than explain it: outlets choose what to cover for many reasons, and we have no evidence about which one applies here.

The White House's Rapid Response 47 account on X posted "Thank you, President Trump!" after meteorologist Chris Martz noted that no hurricanes had formed in the North Atlantic Ocean so far in 2026. Martz described the situation as "history has been made." The National Hurricane Center confirmed that only five relatively weak tropical storms have developed this season, and none are expected to form for at least another week.

The White House post drew mockery on social media from users across the political spectrum. Scientists attribute the quiet hurricane season to a powerful El Niño pattern. Experts told The Associated Press that El Niño's effects have been unusually dominant this year, creating conditions hostile to storm formation in the Atlantic.

Disagreement on the cause of the quiet season

Multiple experts attribute the quiet hurricane season to a powerful El Niño pattern, according to reports. Reality Tea cited Kristen Corbosiero, an atmospheric science professor at the University at Albany, who described hostile conditions for storm formation. Colorado State University meteorologist Phil Klotzbach also noted the severity of El Niño's impact on the Atlantic.

What the coverage left out

None of the left-rated digests mention the White House's Rapid Response 47 account posting "Thank you, President Trump!" in response to a meteorologist noting the lack of hurricanes in the North Atlantic Ocean so far in 2026. The National Hurricane Center confirmed that only five relatively weak tropical storms have developed so far this season, according to Reality Tea and Joe.My.God.

Tags:#WhiteHouse#DonaldTrump#HurricaneSeason#ElNino#SocialMedia

Coverage settled. We checked this 41 times and stopped on 20 Sept 2026, 03:30. The figures above are what it finished at.

How other outlets pictured it

Which photograph to run is each newsroom’s own choice. The leaning beside a name is that outlet’s published rating, not a claim that the pictures divide along it. Every picture is shown from the outlet’s own server and links to the article it ran in.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
Reality TeaCentre

How each side covered it

Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.

Left

8 rated outlets

  • Eight left-rated reports led on the White House's post and the subsequent mockery. HuffPost, Comic Sands, LGBTQ Nation, Wonkette, News.de, indy100-Independent, IndexHR, and Joe.My.God. all highlighted the White House's message and the negative reaction it received. Several of these reports used strong language to describe the post, with HuffPost calling it "bonkers" and "fucking desperate to worship a politician." Wonkette sarcastically suggested "Dear Leader Trump Stopped Them!" and News.de noted the "absurdity" of the situation.

Centre

5 rated outlets

  • The centre outlets reported that the White House’s Rapid Response account posted a thank‑you message to President Trump after a meteorologist highlighted an unusually quiet Atlantic hurricane season. Reality Tea’s full report described the post and noted the National Hurricane Center’s count of five weak tropical storms. UNILAD’s digest characterised the post as ‘crazy’.
  • Reality Tea also reported that scientists attributed the lull to a powerful El Niño, quoting University at Albany professor Kristen Corbosiero on hostile storm‑formation conditions and Colorado State meteorologist Phil Klotzbach on the severity of the pattern. Newsweek’s digest linked El Niño to a possible warm 2027, while ZN.UA’s digest recorded that no hurricane had formed by 12 September.
  • Science Alert’s digest provided a general description of hurricane hazards and historic damage but did not mention the White House post, the storm count, or the El Niño explanation. None of the centre digests included the mockery comments or the reference to 1992’s Hurricane Andrew that appeared in Reality Tea’s full report.

Right

2 rated outlets

  • The single right-rated report, news-pravda.com, stated that the official White House account on X thanked Trump for the fact that no hurricanes had formed in the North Atlantic this year. The report did not elaborate on the reaction to the post or provide scientific explanations.

Questions about this coverage

How did the left and right cover White House thanks Trump for quiet hurricane season?
Of the 15 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 58% are rated left, 17% are rated centre, 25% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it, which was 20. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
Is White House thanks Trump for quiet hurricane season left or right?
Neither side dominates it. Of the 15 rated outlets on this story, 58% are rated left, 17% are rated centre, 25% are rated right, and no side holds the 70% this site would want before calling a field one-sided. A story is not left or right in any case; the outlets that carried it are what carry ratings.
Is the coverage of White House thanks Trump for quiet hurricane season biased?
White House thanks Trump for quiet hurricane season is one event reported by 20 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
Which side is not reporting White House thanks Trump for quiet hurricane season?
When we first saw this story, outlets rated right had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
Which outlets covered White House thanks Trump for quiet hurricane season?
20 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
What did the White House post say about hurricanes?
The White House's Rapid Response 47 account on X posted "Thank you, President Trump!" in response to a meteorologist noting the lack of hurricanes in the North Atlantic Ocean so far in 2026. This post drew widespread mockery online.
Why has the hurricane season been quiet?
Scientists attribute the quiet hurricane season to a powerful El Niño pattern. Experts say El Niño's effects have been unusually dominant this year, creating conditions hostile to storm formation in the Atlantic.
How many tropical storms have formed this year?
The National Hurricane Center confirmed that only five relatively weak tropical storms have developed so far this season. None are expected to form for at least another week, despite it being peak season.

Read it at the source

20 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.

Left

8

Centre

5

Right

2

Not rated

5

How did this read?

About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.

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White House thanks Trump for calm hurricanes | MediaBias News