The administrator of a Facebook page dedicated to weather in Malta decided to suspend the page after receiving online abuse from people disappointed because forecast heavy rains last weekend failed to materialise in their localities.
Samuel Cutajar, who has run It-Temp Madwarna (The Weather Around Us) Facebook page for almost eight years, claimed he faced a deluge of insults over the weekend as social media users vented their frustration because of lack of rain.
“People were asking a lot of questions, calling me an alarmist and venting their frustrations at my forecasts, which I thought was very unfair,” he said.
Cutajar’s page predicted thundery showers for Saturday – in line with Meteorological Office predictions – but it did not rain in all localities, evidently irking some social media users.
“People were waiting for storms or rain on Saturday, and we did have rain and even a thunderstorm or two but most of the storms went over to Sicily or out to sea. So, we didn’t get the brunt of the storms.
“There were numerous attacks claiming I ruined events and several businesses by being an alarmist,” he said, adding he had been called “stupid” by one social media user.
“When I saw so many angry people commenting and venting their anger at my predictions, I felt I had to suspend my activities after years of continuous voluntary service posting two or three times per day.”
Though Cutajar has endured similar attacks in the past, he said the volume of attacks had “crossed a line and a message needs to be sent”.
He said that while most of the attacks were posted as comments on the Facebook page, some people also contacted him through private messages, others even sending messages to his personal account.
Explaining that, most of the time, he ignored such comments or joked about them with friends, he said the attacks over the weekend made him feel his reputation had been “shattered into pieces”.
In a bizarre twist, he said some people had even “blamed weather forecasters for not having rained, claiming that our posts curse it”.
One person wrote on the Facebook page: “You’re driving everyone crazy. You don’t get one out of 100 forecasts right. It’s not even worth the time you’re wasting.” Another told Cutajar he had made a fool of himself.
In a show of solidarity on Saturday night, however, fellow weather page Maltese Islands Weather posted a message of support, saying it was “sad to see a person who is, for his own business and fun, sharing what he has studied... fall victim to desperate, unjust, deceptive and malignant attacks”.
Page administrator Andrea Muscat told Times of Malta he too had received attacks online, with people “so desperate for rain they get angry”.
Stressing it was difficult to know how thunderstorms would impact land until just before they hit, he said predicting the weather in Malta a “big challenge”.
While public reaction has, for the time being, seemed to dampen Cutajar’s enthusiasm, he said he might reconsider his decision.
“Based on the flood of positive counter-messages, I might reconsider reopening the page I really take pride in,” he said.
Malta experienced three millimetres of rain on Saturday while winds reached speeds of almost 41 knots, the Met Office said, adding the country experienced isolated thundery showers that day in line with predictions.