# Could an Atomic Bomb stop a Hurricane? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 3, 2004, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-an-atomic-bomb-stop-a-hurricane/262970 "2004-09-03T16:24:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2004, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-an-atomic-bomb-stop-a-hurricane/262970/1 "2004-09-03T16:24:52Z")
So, If we dropped a nuclear bomb somewhere near Frances (the hurricane, not the Talking Mule) would that have any effect on it at all? How about several nukes? Seems like a litle danger of fallout in the open sea would be preferable to billions of dollars of damage. International protests not withstanding. Just curious. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2004, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-an-atomic-bomb-stop-a-hurricane/262970/2 "2004-09-03T16:43:44Z")
There was a thread about his a few weeks ago. The consensus was that no, it wouldn’t work. For one thing, the energy dissipation of a hurricane is orders of magnitude greater than any nuclear bomb we have. For another, the size of a hurricane is just enormous. They typically range from 300 to 1000 miles in diameter. A nuke, on the other hand, has an effective radius of maybe a few tens of miles. It would be like trying to stop a sherman tank with a hand grenade. ---
**Author:** ![Ass\_For\_A\_Hat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ec9cab/32.png) [@Ass\_For\_A\_Hat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ass_For_A_Hat)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2004, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-an-atomic-bomb-stop-a-hurricane/262970/3 "2004-09-03T17:11:45Z")
> [@BMalion](#): > > Seems like a litle danger of fallout in the open sea would be preferable to billions of dollars of damage. Aren’t hurricaines windy? Seems to me that the fallout wouldn’t be restricted to the blast area. Regarding the billions of dollars in damage…you’d just be changing the type of damage and spreading it over a larger area. I’m sure the people in Georgia that ended up with cancer would be real happy that they were able to save some buildings in Florida. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2004, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-an-atomic-bomb-stop-a-hurricane/262970/4 "2004-09-03T21:17:36Z")
[No.](http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5c.html) ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2004, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-an-atomic-bomb-stop-a-hurricane/262970/5 "2004-09-03T22:42:13Z")
[These guys](http://www.dynomat.com/storm.shtml) think they’ve got something that might work, but they haven’t updated their site in a couple of years, so I’ve no idea if they’ve made any progress or not. > [@](#): > > July 19, 2001 West Palm Beach, FL: Using a Canaberra, Dyn-O-Mat became the first people ever take a cloud off of Doppler radar. > For the last 2 years extensive field-testing has been taking place. Including: cutting a cloud in half using a crop duster. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2004, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-an-atomic-bomb-stop-a-hurricane/262970/6 "2004-09-03T23:19:51Z")
Because we’ll end up with [This.](http://haiku.shacknews.com/firecane.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2004, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-an-atomic-bomb-stop-a-hurricane/262970/7 "2004-09-04T01:17:58Z")
> [@Q.E.D.](#): > > There was a thread about his a few weeks ago. More like last week. And every hurricane season the board has been on. Also, besides the fact that we \“puny humans with your pathetic weapons”\ just would make the hurricane radioactive AND destructive, I don’t think it’s that smart to interfere with the process by which the equatorial ocean gets thermally compensated. And we really need to reconsider our risk analysis. We don’t want our property blown away by hurricanes? So let’s build it out of concrete. Don’t want it washed out to sea? Don’t build it on a &^%$# barrier island. Don’t want it consumed by wildfires? Don’t put it in the middle of a dry temperate conifer forest. And so on.