Culture

Theory Suggesting World’s Largest Magnet Pushed Hurricane Helene Away From Florida State Gains Traction

#Hurricane Helene
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image of FSU Mag Lab repelling a hurricane

Getty Images/iStock Composite / Chris Leduc / MikeMareen


Florida State University and the city of Tallahassee dodged a bullet on Thursday night when Hurricane Helene shifted at the last minute and spared the state capital of Florida from a direct hit.

Things appeared to be very bad for FSU when The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore was given Tallahassee as his location assignment for Hurricane Helene but with the last minute shift a theory has (once again) taken off that FSU’s Mag Lab, home to the world’s largest magnet, spared the city of Tally from a direct hit.

FSU’s Mag Lab in Tallahassee is a 1-of-1 facility. It is both the largest and highest-powered magnetic laboratory on planet earth. FSU’s Mag Lab has a 32-tesla all-superconducting magnet which is the most powerful all-superconducting magnet in the world. It is also home to a 45 tesla magnet which “combines a superconducting magnet of 11.5 tesla with a resistive magnet of 33.5 tesla.”

But is FSU’s Mag Lab enough to control the weather?!?!

Every time there is a hurricane approaching the city of Tallahassee and misses people talk about how the Mag Lab did it. Jokes took off on X, formerly known as Twitter, due to a last-second track shift from Hurricane Helene. Check ou the shift here just prior to landfall:

The football team in Tallahassee could learn a thing or two about the power of Mag Lab:

Anyone who didn’t believe in the weather-controlling power of FSU’s Mag Lab but does now can fill out this form:

Check out this video of Hurricane Helene coming straight for Tallahassee until, some believe, it felt the power of Mag Lab and was like “I don’t want any of that smoke” and shifted hard to the East:

Can FSU’s Mag Lab Control The Weather?!

No. It cannot. Weather can be impacted by earth’s magnetic field but FSU’s Mag Lab cannot control hurricanes even if we really want to believe it can.

The Orlando Sentinel addressed this earlier this Summer when Tallahassee was spared a direct hit from Hurricane Debby. They point out that conspiracy theories about Mag Lab steering hurricanes away from Tallahassee have endured for three decades, ever since Mag Lab first came to exist.

Susan DeGrange Ray is the former director of public affairs for the MagLab and she explained the enduring conspiracy theory as “So, people think ‘magnets attract and repel. Huge magnets must be able to do that at such a level they can propel storms away.’ They think high magnetic fields can affect the weather”

Another former MagLab Director, Gregory Boebinger, explained the theory to the Tallahassee Democrat 7 years ago as “we seem to get credit for good weather and blame for bad weather. We deserve neither. The amount of energy we control is nothing compared to the amount of energy in the smallest of thunderstorms. Hurricanes are way out of our league.”

On the FSU subreddit, people at least were able to admit it’s a long-running joke that has taken on a life of its own.

Even though FSU’s Mag Lab is home to the most powerful magnets on earth, he’s right, the energy they can control pales in comparison to the energy generated from hurricanes.

Never the less, as an FSU alum, I choose to believe Mag Lab is watching out over Doak Campbell Stadium and the city of Tallahassee in general.

For more on Hurricane Helene’s impact on the state of Florida, here is an interesting story on the reopening of Midnight Pass on Siesta Key in Sarasota, Florida.