Rush Limbaugh mocks fake story about shark hurricanes on air

An Ireland-based blogger shared this viral, but long-debunked image claiming to show a shark on a Houston highway during Hurricane Harvey last year. Click through the gallery to read about myths about Hurricane Katrina. less An Ireland-based blogger shared this viral, but long-debunked image claiming to show a shark on a Houston highway during Hurricane Harvey last year. Click through the gallery to read about myths about Hurricane ... more Photo: Jason Michael On Twitter Photo: Jason Michael On Twitter Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close Rush Limbaugh mocks fake story about shark hurricanes on air 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

Whenever a major weather event is bearing down, there are certain popular urban myths that tend to go into circulation on social media.

Among the popular recurring offenders are false reports of a real-life Sharknado (a tornado full of sharks, for those who have not had the pleasure of viewing any of the six "Sharknado" films).

Radio host Rush Limbaugh poked fun at that myth this week when he read aloud from a fake story saying that Hurricane Florence has sucked up sharks from the ocean and is now full of said sharks.

"New reports from NOAA aircraft show sharks have been lifted into the hurricane," Limbaugh read in a Tuesday episode of "The Rush Limbaugh Show." "So those of you in the target path in North Carolina, South Carolina: In addition to the pig manure, in addition to the slop, in addition to the floods, in addition to the cars rolling around on the waters in front of your house, in addition to the mudslides and the landslides, now you might end up with a shark in your front yard."

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"So sharks are being lifted out of the Atlantic Ocean and dumped into the storm because it's so strong it's sucking them in there," he said incredulously.

"It isn't going to be raining sharks," he clarified.

The NOAA has not issued any reports of sharks being lifted into the hurricane, but similar false reports circulated during Hurricane Irma and other past storms.

Perhaps now we can take a cue from the title of the final "Sharknado" film ("The Last Sharknado: It's About Time") and put this fake story to rest.

Limbaugh has said that exaggerated news reports are preparation for the media to frame the hurricane as President Trump's Hurricane Katrina.

Last year, Limbaugh declared that sensational news of Hurricane Irma, which killed at least 13 people, was being used "to promote the climate change agenda" but evacuated his Palm Beach mansion a day later because of it.

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"You know, I had to cancel a bunch of stuff," he complained at the time. "I was going to go to a private movie screening this afternoon, and I had a bunch of stuff to do tonight, and now that's all blown to smithereens."

At least there were no sharks.

An earlier version of this story failed to acknowledge that Mr. Limbaugh was speaking in jest when discussing the sharks in the hurricane. SFGATE regrets the error.

Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchronicle.com and follow her on Twitter