Former NOAA chief official calls statement defending Trump Alabama claim agency’s ‘darkest day’

The former chief operating officer of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) panned a statement from the agency Friday that disavowed a tweet from the National Weather Service that contradicted President Trump’s claim that Alabama was in the path of Hurricane Dorian.

“Perhaps the darkest day ever for @noaa leadership. Don’t know how they will ever look their workforce in the eye again. Moral cowardice,” David Titley tweeted.

The tweet came after an unsigned NOAA statement saying that the “Birmingham National Weather Service’s Sunday morning tweet spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.”

{mosads}”From Wednesday, August 28, through Monday, September 2, the information provided by NOAA and the National Hurricane Center to President Trump and the wider public demonstrated that tropical-storm-force winds from Hurricane Dorian could impact Alabama,” the agency added. 

Trump maintained a days-long controversy about his claim that Dorian was going to hit Alabama, saying that the media attention over his remark is overblown.

“The Fake News Media was fixated on the fact that I properly said, at the beginnings of Hurricane Dorian, that in addition to Florida & other states, Alabama may also be grazed or hit,” Trump tweeted Friday. 

“Check out maps…This nonsense has never happened to another President. Four days of corrupt reporting, still without an apology.”

He first made the claim Wednesday when he displayed a map in the Oval Office showing Dorian making its way up the East Coast with a Sharpie outline extending the storm’s path to include Alabama. The National Hurricane Center’s projections did not show the state in the storm’s path.