Who should you trust for a weather forecast?

As a sky Six months rain In February in Northern Queensland, Australia, many locals made sleepless sleep, it is uncertain at what levels of floods and damage they would wake up.

Perhaps no one is more than Andrew Brown – a cybercity lecturer, a self -made amateur weather as a day of the day with a side hustle.

Some people know that Mr. Brown has a brain behind the season of Valley – a Facebook page with 107,000 followers and 24 million monthly views, focusing on the weather in the tropical state of Queensland.

During the record-breaking floods, when 400 people were forced to vacate their homes, Mr. Brown published the clock positions, even out of a sense of duty and responsibility for their audience to share updates to wake up at night.

Even when he saw on his weather radar, he quickly quit work that a five-hour non-stop would get close to the rain, not only his Facebook followers, but also his owners, colleagues, wife and adult children to do the same.

“When a big weather occur occurs, you try and give people as much notice as possible.”

He is located in Townsville, which is known for the wet, warm, humid wet weather from January to March.

“People want to know what is going on, because even though they lose electricity, they have probably still got an internet connection. These systems are notorious to be at night time when you can’t see what is going on, so you feel like their eyes and ears,” Sri Brown says.

Mr. Brown’s active, highly engaged Facebook audiences indicate how more public members of the public are changing towards social media for news and weather updates – in America, it is how 20% adults get this information, According to Pew Research Center,

People pay as much attention to the affected on Facebook as they do journalists and mainstream media, and actually pay more attention to them than their mainstream counterparts on YouTube, Instagram and Tikok, according to a study By Reuters Institute and University of Oxford.

Professor Daniel Angus is the director of the Digital Media Research Center at the University of Technology.

When Brisbane-based professor Angus caught himself in heavy rains and also in the floods brought by the tropical cyclone Alfred in February, he preferred to follow the official advice from the Australian Bureau of Meteorological, as he believes he still provides the most accurate forecasts and warnings.

Prof. Angus recognizes the growing popularity of weather effects, like the season of Valley of Shree Brown, which is about the widespread trend of public mistrust towards mainstream media and government sources, but to fill the gaps in coverage and relativity.

Professor Angus says, “Weather affected people have gained popularity especially in rural and regional areas, as they provide highly localized, real -time updates that can often ignore mainstream media.”

“They are directly attached to their audience, offer personal analysis and respond to community concerns that traditional news outlets usually do not do.

“Their credibility has increased because they are seen as emotional, knowledgeable and often as deeply embedded in communities on which they report.”

Nevertheless, the issue with the weather efficiency is his tendency of Professor Angus notes, Skaremongar, as the social media season has also been criticized, located in Towns 8, chasing the forecaster Higgins Storm of the Social Media season.

In 2018, it was criticized One million Facebook followers to predict the historical levels of rain and floods, which was not physical.

Chasing the Higgins Storm, who has hired Thomas Hunterforfer of professional meteorologist and amateur tornado, not responding to the BBC’s request for an interview.

“Weather efficions often have the possibility of hyperbolic and exaggerated claims, as they are not held for the same standards or consequences of their mainstream and official government counterparts, which is motivated to spread scaremming claims, and misinformation claims,” ​​Professor Angs explains.

“We have to understand that they are part of a focus economy. The more eyes they have, the more engagement they see on their matrix. Bureau and governments are very reserved in excluding alert and withdrawal orders, as it only takes some non-events to rely on them,” says Professor Angus.

“They have to answer for this, while for Higgins or any other, eventually zero accountability if they make it completely messed up.”

It is a visual shared by a former TV Vedarman Allen Celles, which now teaches meteorology at South Alabama University, and serves as a forensic meteorologist, who provides weather analysis for legal matters.

Professor Celles is now also the presidential election of the American Metorological Society (AMS), which welcomes both the weather affected as professionally trained meteorologists and members, so there is no official position on the subject.

But the personal approach of Professor Sealles is that the meteorologist with an online platform adds meteorologist, while people without formal training stand to defame the profession.

“There are people who are not formally trained and take more risk in showing and promoting long -range weather outlooks, such as accurate as a short distance forecasts, especially when the outlook indicates on the peak season. It is believed to be the propaganda that click and shares people, enhances the popularity of the affected,” they say.

“Avoid trained meteorologists because it causes confusion in removing something, when it is actually uncertain and unknown.

“On the other hand, the weather is affected, which have equipment and expertise to track and forecast local weather, when it is extreme, in time of crisis, often focus more to communities that do not do full coverage from traditional TV stations.”

While Andrew Brown of Valley season is taught in meteorology, they have masters and have many other technology qualifications.

His investment in forecast equipment has been so large that he introduced the membership paid three years ago, but he mainly covers his costs.

The advancement of AI, they say, gives him more time to analyze the data correctly and communicate to their followers. This will also allow him to expand to the Australia-Wide operation.

Nevertheless, there are money in the world affecting the weather. Colorado -based Andrew Markvitz has a meteorological degree and works full -time for an energy company, but also has 135,000 followers on a ticket -weather page.

Through a combination of live stream donations, sponsorship, brand deals, and Tiktok’s creativity program, which helps the creators to mudlize their content, Mr. Markavitz says that he can earn up to thousands of dollars a month.

“This is definitely not enough to quit my job, nor I want. I just consider it as a funny money on the shore, which I usually spend on travel,” Mr. Markovitz is called.

Back in Australia, Mr. Brown says he wants to retire from teaching, and is longed to focus on the Valley season and spend with his grandson, but it admits that it is a little far away. But what he does not want is to be the face of the page – something that has been avoided till now.

“I don’t go out of my way to tell who I am, because I like to be able to walk on the road and are not disturbed. I have been interviewed on the radio first, and then went to the back of the person, and they did not know that it was I was,” Sri Brown.

“Sometimes I can stand in line and listen to people talking about the page, and they have no idea that I am there. It adds all this to fun.”