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| Hurricane Katrina was one of the most powerful storms to strike the United States. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) captured this image from NASA's Terra satellite at 1:00 p.m. Sunday, August 28, 2005. NASA |
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Nuclear weapons and hurricanes don't mix, NOAA advises
BBC
Mon Aug 26, 2019
Category: Weird News
Using nuclear weapons to destroy hurricanes is not a good idea, a US scientific agency has said, following reports that President Donald Trump wanted to explore the option.
The Axios news website said Mr Trump had asked several national security officials about the possibility.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the results would be "devastating".
Mr Trump has denied making the suggestion.
Hurricanes typically affect the US east coast, often causing serious damage.
It's not the first time the idea has been considered.
Following reports of Mr Trump's suggestion, the hashtag #ThatsHowTheApocalyseStarted has been trending on Twitter.
Mr Trump asked why the US couldn't drop a bomb into the eye of the storm to stop it from making landfall, news site Axios said.
The NOAA says that using nuclear weapons on a hurricane "might not even alter the storm" and the "radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas".
The difficulty with using explosives to change hurricanes, it says, is the amount of energy needed.
The heat release of a hurricane is equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes.
Even though the mechanical energy of a bomb is closer to that of the storm, "the task of focusing even half of the energy on a spot in the middle of a remote ocean would be formidable", it adds.
"Attacking weak tropical waves or depressions before they have a chance to grow into hurricanes isn't promising either," says the NOAA.
"About 80 of these disturbances form every year in the Atlantic basin but only about five become hurricanes in a typical year. There is no way to tell in advance which ones will develop."
The idea of bombing a hurricane has been around since the 1950s when the suggestion was originally made by a government scientist.
During a speech at the National Press Club in 1961, Francis Riechelderfer, head of the US Weather Bureau, said he could "imagine the possibility of someday exploding a nuclear bomb on a hurricane far at sea".
The Weather Bureau would only begin acquiring nuclear weapons when "we know what we're doing", he added, according to National Geographic.
The NOAA says the idea is often suggested during hurricane season.
The Atlantic Hurricane season runs from 1 June until the end of November. The peak of the season comes in September when sea temperatures are at their highest.
The NOAA warned earlier this month that conditions were now more favourable for above-normal hurricane activity. It is predicting between 10 and 17 named storms, of which 5-9 will become hurricanes, including 2-4 major hurricanes.
Two named storms have formed so far this year.
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