They could always just use HAARP

/at least that's what my conspiracy raving cousin said

Duh. A nuke in a hurricane would only turn the wind radioactive.

You may as well try to stop a freight train with a bottle rocket.

What is it with this Nuke a Hurricane crap, detonating a Nuclear Weapon is NEVER a good idea fallout radiation sickness etc. just quit with the Nuke a Hurricane talk already.

Drink rat poison to cure a hangover.

It's article like this, written in response to S T U P I D questions like this, that have me worried about the future of mankind............



/ ya.... STUPID isn't big enough......

People just do not understand the scale and power of weather and several other natural events and disasters. For example, a run-of-the-mill four foot wave breaking on a beach releases the same amount of mechanical energy as a small tactical nuke. This is why some countries are working on harvesting wave energy to convert it to electricity.

Nuking a hurricane is like trying to kill everyone in northern Alaska using a single burst of machine gun fire. The destructive energy is impressive, but not so much when your target area is hundreds of miles across.

NUKE THE MOON!

Someone actually demanded this, and we have to explain why it's a bad idea?

NO: We will not nuke hurricanes. And a US weather agency has responded to public pressure by explaining why.

I admit, there's a significant number of people in this country who think there is NO problem that cannot be fixed by adding Jesus or bacon to it, but nukes? Really?

dragonchild: Nuking a hurricane is like trying to kill everyone in northern Alaska using a single burst of machine gun fire. The destructive energy is impressive, but not so much when your target area is hundreds of miles across.

As a dorky engineer, I immediately started picturing a method of cooling the gun long enough to do the deed.

JackieRabbit: People just do not understand the scale and power of weather and several other natural events and disasters.

So you're saying use more nukes?

Need a Dispenser Here: As a dorky engineer, I immediately started picturing a method of cooling the gun long enough to do the deed.

just conduct your shooting in the winter. Why engineer something when nature has solved the problem for you? Silly engineer.

This is why.

NutWrench: NO: We will not nuke hurricanes. And a US weather agency has responded to public pressure by explaining why.

I admit, there's a significant number of people in this country who think there is NO problem that cannot be fixed by adding Jesus or bacon to it, but nukes? Really?

So you're suggesting we should dump bacon into the hurricane instead? That's a huge sacrifice there.

Alphax: Duh. A nuke in a hurricane would only turn the wind radioactive.

Only on SyFy.

The NOAA dude isn't thinking mad-science enough -- or, as a matter of public policy, isn't emphasizing the mad part enough. It's not so much that it couldn't be done as that it wouldn't be such a good idea.

In the first place, surgically disrupting a hurricane may not even be possible (complex systems, lol), and attempting to do it might easily make the storm much worse. Risky experiment. But at present we wouldn't even really know how to go about it. It'd be like a chimp flinging poop to try to stop a bulldozer from demolishing the zoo enclosure. An impressive display, perhaps, but neither elegant nor likely productive.

And in the second place, if it turns out that hurricanes can retaliate, we'd be farked.

Huh, I thought the "solution that is totally ineffective" du jour was spreading millions of barrels of oil on the ocean surface to cut off evaporation.

wxboy: Huh, I thought the "solution that is totally ineffective" du jour was spreading millions of barrels of oil on the ocean surface to cut off evaporation.

That was just a passing fantasy at a BP marketing board meeting. You weren't expected to take it seriously.

I think the proponents of the idea are thinking of a different angle.

Sure, a hurricane contains a lot of energy. A tremendous, phenomenal amount of energy even. All this energy is ordered in a specific pattern- a counter-clockwise spiral. I believe their intention is to disrupt the ordered system that the hurricane does its damage through.

So, what of it? An electric shock doesn't need to completely destroy the mass of a person's body to kill them, just disturb the ordered electrical patterns that support life. Would the shock wave of a major detonation disrupt the wind patterns and "shock" a hurricane into a "dead" chaotic jumble of moist air?

Gotta nuke somethin'.

LazarusLong42:
So you're suggesting we should dump bacon into the hurricane instead? That's a huge sacrifice there.

NO! NOT THE BACON!

Nuke it from orbit in a trilateral formation.

It would be absurd. All of the radioactive dust would get spread out by the outflow, and it would rain down over a huge area.

JackieRabbit: People just do not understand the scale and power of weather and several other natural events and disasters. For example, a run-of-the-mill four foot wave breaking on a beach releases the same amount of mechanical energy as a small tactical nuke. This is why some countries are working on harvesting wave energy to convert it to electricity.

How much energy are we talking?

I'd recommend nuking people who ask stupid questions like that, but it would only make a large cloud of radioactive stupid.

HAMMERTOE: I think the proponents of the idea are thinking of a different angle.

Sure, a hurricane contains a lot of energy. A tremendous, phenomenal amount of energy even. All this energy is ordered in a specific pattern- a counter-clockwise spiral. I believe their intention is to disrupt the ordered system that the hurricane does its damage through.

So, what of it? An electric shock doesn't need to completely destroy the mass of a person's body to kill them, just disturb the ordered electrical patterns that support life. Would the shock wave of a major detonation disrupt the wind patterns and "shock" a hurricane into a "dead" chaotic jumble of moist air?

No.

They know this because they already tried it.

It was a top secret attempt to kill castro, the US military in 1960 bombed hurricane donna. It killed 150 people. The cuban missile crisis was purely retaliation.

stealingisbad: JackieRabbit: People just do not understand the scale and power of weather and several other natural events and disasters. For example, a run-of-the-mill four foot wave breaking on a beach releases the same amount of mechanical energy as a small tactical nuke. This is why some countries are working on harvesting wave energy to convert it to electricity.

How much energy are we talking?

Nearly limitless green energy. One wave power plant would be able to power all of New York depending on its size.

It's not like sending radioactive particles into the air would have any side-effects around the world. Let's ask the people of Pripyat.

The stupid is painful.

I heard there were like 10 million Hiroshimas in every hurricane. That's a lot of Japanese people.

Need a Dispenser Here: dragonchild: Nuking a hurricane is like trying to kill everyone in northern Alaska using a single burst of machine gun fire. The destructive energy is impressive, but not so much when your target area is hundreds of miles across.

As a dorky engineer, I immediately started picturing a method of cooling the gun long enough to do the deed.

Simple, a water cooled .30 cal with a garden hose attachment.

A hurricane's "fuel" is warm water....so heating it up with a nuclear bomb may not be wise.

Langdon Alger: A hurricane's "fuel" is warm water....so heating it up with a nuclear bomb may not be wise.

Although dropping an extremely high pressure source into a low pressure system might actually work.

Shame about the fallout, though.

Tom_Slick: What is it with this Nuke a Hurricane crap, detonating a Nuclear Weapon is NEVER a good idea fallout radiation sickness etc. just quit with the Nuke a Hurricane talk already.

Yes, because everybody knows you would need a Nuke the size of the Tsar bomb to stop a hurricane. No my friends if you want to stop hurricanes you need to go out to the asteroid belt and find ones the size of Rhode Island to drop on the hurricane. It is the only way.

Nuke a hurricane?!?! Is this a thing? What are these people smoking?

Alternatively, could you use thermobaric weapons on a large scale to disrupt a hurricane? With a $60 billion cost to Sandy, you could build a lot of bombs and still come out ahead. Plus, no fallout.

/Gotta nuke somethin'

Langdon Alger: A hurricane's "fuel" is warm water....so heating it up with a nuclear bomb may not be wise.

THIS

The only practical solution is to drop ice into the water just ahead of the hurricane's path.

1,000,000,000,000 trays ought to be enough.

People who ask to nuke a hurricane are stupid, but the NOAA's response is also kind of stupid. They give a bunch of numbers that don't mean a thing to the average person. Do the math, and just say "it would take 20,000 nuclear bombs to disrupt a hurricane" or whatever the number is.

xip_80: It would be absurd. All of the radioactive dust would get spread out by the outflow, and it would rain down over a huge area.

Dust?

That picture is cool.

A nuclear bomb couldn't stop it, but could Adam Bomb?

I'm thinking that the nukes they are talking about are too small. The Tzar Bomb was only 57 MT and that is the largest ever detonated. We can make them more compact now with higher yields than ones in the 1960's. I say we make a 1000,000 MT bomb, put it on a ship and watch the entire Gulf of Mexico evaporate! Do it when the wind will carry the fallout over central Mexico where no real people will be harmed. POW! ZAP! KURSPLOOOOOGE! Take that mom! Take that dad! Take the Doctor Sally Waxler! Tell me I need to see a psychiatrist.

/too much auto correction and not enough time

Demonrats: I'm thinking that the nukes they are talking about are too small. The Tzar Bomb was only 57 MT and that is the largest ever detonated. We can make them more compact now with higher yields than ones in the 1960's. I say we make a 1000,000 MT bomb, put it on a ship and watch the entire Gulf of Mexico evaporate! Do it when the wind will carry the fallout over central Mexico where no real people will be harmed. POW! ZAP! KURSPLOOOOOGE! Take that mom! Take that dad! Take the Doctor Sally Waxler! Tell me I need to see a psychiatrist.

We could also just build a giant planet-sized magnifying glass to concentrate the sun's rays into the eye of the hurricane, which would have as much energy as a thousand nukes! Continuously too!

Trying to process the notion that this is even a thing broke my brain.

FTA: "NOAA's carefully worded response gives a more practical analysis."

Difficulty: People in the habit of suggesting that nuking hurricanes seems like a great idea are seldom interested in things like "practicality", or "analysis"... or being careful...

...or words.