Less than an hour after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Taylor County rather than due south of Tallahassee as forecast, a parody account for the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory took credit for the sudden, seemingly inexplicable turn.
“This is what I do,” someone known as “The Magnet” on X/Twitter posted alongside a radar image of Helene spinning away from the Capital City.
The MagLab, a cutting-edge facility in Innovation Park that houses the biggest and most powerful magnets on planet Earth, has done more than merely advance science over the years. It has launched countless punchlines and memes and made more than a few believers about its much-touted but entirely fictional weather-control powers.
The comments tend to go into overdrive after a squall line fizzles out or a hurricane changes path instead of hitting Tallahassee. Helene made the MagLab go viral once again.
“The absurd conspiracy I will always believe — the Mag Lab is Tallahassee’s weather shield,” Steve Schale, a longtime Democratic political consultant, said in an X post just after landfall.