Old Video of Cloud Cover Shared as Visuals of Cyclone Asani from Andhra Pradesh

We could trace the video back to at least June 2021.

A 19-second video showing cloud cover over a water body is being shared on social media with the claim that it shows visuals of Cyclone Asani from Machilipatnam beach in Andhra Pradesh.

Cyclone Asani made landfall in coastal Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday night, 11 May, and weakened into a deep depression. It is likely to weaken further in the next 12 hours, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Thursday morning, 12 May.

However, we found the video is at least from June 2021.

CLAIM

The video was shared by The Times of India journalist Syed Akbar along with the claim, "#AsaniCyclone #Asani #cyclone Scene at #Machilipatnam beach. Very fearsome and scary. Power of Nature #Andhrapradesh.(sic)"

The video was viewed over 13,000 times.

Several social media users have shared the video along with similar claims and the archived links can be seen here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

With the help of InVID, a video verification tool, we extracted several keyframes from the video and conducted a reverse image search on some of them.

A Yandex reverse image search result led us to videos on YouTube that were posted in 2021.

One of the videos posted on 27 September 2021 read that the visuals were from Kalingapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

Further, looking with relevant keywords, we found a tweet by a user – Andhra Pradesh Weatherman – posted on 11 May.

He shared a screenshot from his Instagram account which carried the same visual.

The caption of his tweet read, "This is not #CycloneAsani. This Video I have posted in my Instagram on 21 June 2021. Location - Kalingapatnam, Srikakulam. (sic)"

We checked his Instagram profile and the bio of the user named Sai Praneeth B read that he gives updates about Andhra Pradesh and Hyderabad's weather.

The video was posted on 17 June 2021 and the caption read, "Kalingapatnam beach, Srikakulam."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sai Praneeth B (@andhrapradeshweatherman)

While we have not been able to independently verify the location of the video, it is evidently an old one and doesn't show the visuals of Cyclone Asani.

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