INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — As two winter systems bear down with the possibility of snow, rain, and wind for Indiana, the experts who watch the weather for us are also concerned about the “human hot air” that often arrives first, in the form of misinformation.

Too often, they say, others who should know better intentionally stoke fears by posting dire predictions of massive snow totals far too early for an accurate forecast.

“It is so frustrating sometimes,” Storm Track 8 Meteorologist Ryan Morse said Thursday on Daybreak. “When we’re talking like a week out, you could see a model run go from a foot to nothing to six inches, all back to back to back. And what’s the most frustrating is… someone will post the doomsday scenario.”

Ryan says he even gets screenshots from family members worried about numbers that may be nonsense.

In a new post urging people to avoid alarmist content, the National Weather Service calls it a “fire hose of information on social media”.

The Do and Don’t List from NWS:

• Follow trusted weather sources
• Monitor daily updates
• Stay weather aware
• DON’T believe single-model snowfall output
• DON’T ignore updates
• DON’T wait to have a winter preparedness plan

Storm Track 8 Meteorologist Tara Hastings cautions against putting too much stock in “warnings” issued by anyone other than the NWS: “You can’t do that. You’ve got to leave that to the National Weather Service. We don’t even issue those warnings as television meteorologists. We relay that (NWS) information to you all.”

Ryan advises always looking at exactly where any weather information comes from. “If I see these viral posts, I’m like, who is this? I’m looking, and if I can’t find in the ‘about information’ section who they are, I’m not going to trust them.”

The Storm Track 8 team delivers frequent, ever-evolving updates about all approaching weather systems on-air at WISH-TV and through future casts, blogs, radar, and more at WISHTV.com.

Click here to follow Storm Track 8 on Facebook.