Is a video authentically showing a "tornado storm" in Chicago on July 16, 2024? No, that's not true: The tornados in this video appear fake and a college animation professor told Lead Stories that "portions of the video montage have AI or VFX elements added." Multiple credible media organizations reported tornado-like storms in Chicago on July 15, 2024 -- not July 16, 2024.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Instagram on July 18, 2024. The caption said:
#weather #climate #nature #fyp
White text superimposed on a video compilation displaying active tornados read:
Tornado Storm in Chicago 🇺🇸 today
Credit: breaking_news7
July 16, 2024
This is what the post looked like on Instagram at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Mon July 22 15:30:30 2024 UTC)
A search of the Instagram platform for the account @breaking_news7 did not produce any credible media accounts to substantiate this claim.
A July 19, 2024, Chicago Tribune article titled, "Illinois has already experienced over 100 tornadoes this year, double the annual average," reported that the National Weather Service in Chicago confirmed "at least 28 tornadoes swept across northern Illinois and northwest Indiana" on the night of July 14, 2024, and July 15, 2024. The article described the tornadoes as deriving from a derecho, "a widespread and long-lived storm with damaging winds."
Tornados in Chicago recorded on July 15, 2024, were rated EF-0 to EF-2 on the Enhanced Fujita (EF) Scale, ratings that range from weak to significant, according to the National Weather Service. The tornadoes seen in the video of the claim clearly range from EF-3 to EF-5, which is severe to catastrophic.
An additional search of the National Weather Service website using keywords from the claim did not reveal any other reporting on "Tornado Storms" in Chicago on July 16, 2024.
Lead Stories also did a search using keywords on Google News, visible here, which found no credible documents or reporting to prove the claim.
Morgan Kelly, an associate professor of computer graphics animation at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts and a 3D layout artist at Marvel Studios, told Lead Stories in a June 23, 2024, email that portions of the footage and audio in this video appear to have been digitally edited:
I would confirm that portions of the video montage have AI [Artificial Intelligence] or VFX [Visual Effects] elements added to actual storm footage.
It looks like the clips have natural wind and rain in them so that it looks more natural when adding in AI or VFX tornadoes and lightning.
AI or VFX has trouble or takes painstaking work to mask out foreground objects to look convincing when they overlap the AI/VFX elements.
You can see in many of the clips that the building edges wobble or change shape slightly when there is the effect in the background. Details like leaves or powerlines will get lost or have a feathered white edge around them.
In one of the clips a street light completely disappears when the tornado passes behind it.
The sfx [Sound Effects In Film And Video] sounds fake because of the looping repetitive sounds and obvious Jurassic Park resemblance, but I couldn't give more info on that.
A search on YouTube for "fake tornado videos" revealed a September 10, 2023, YouTube short (archived here) that displays the first video in the compilation in the Instagram post. The caption of this YouTube short reads:
This Tornado Video is FAKE!
A Google Lens search (archived here) revealed that that first tornado in the video compilation appears in numerous TikTok posts, supposedly in numerous other locations across North America.
A July 16, 2024, YouTube video titled "07-15-2024 Swedonia, Illinois--Tornado, Derecho, Severe Winds" on the verified account of Live Storms Media displayed authentic footage of the wind gusts and flash flooding that occurred during the storm in Northwest Illinois. None of the severe tornadoes seen in the Instagram post were in this footage, which shows what looks like a thunderstorm.
Resemble AI, an AI audio-detection tool on a different platform, also determined that the voice heard in the video post was "fake":
(Source: Resemble AI screenshot taken on Mon July 22 19:41:30 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories previously debunked a 2023 claim that an authentic video showed a tornado forming over New York.
