For putting out a city-wide fire, would you rather a deluge, blizzard, or windstorm?

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

I won’t go into any detail about the real-life reason for this thread. Suffice to say that it is incredibly silly. You can read the following scenario if you wish, but I think the thread title is clear enough.

For the masochists among you:

Imagine that you are Thor, God of Thunder–Marvel Comics version. Mightiest of Earth’s heroes. For purposes of this discussion, your powers are super-strength, invulnerabiliy, flight, a nitfy enchanted hammer, and magical control of the weather. You can instantly create any weather condition you feel like, and said condition will continue as if naturally until you return your attention to meteorology. It’s back in the days when the Marvel Universe was not as lousy with superbeings as it is nowadays: the only other super-heroes are the FF, original five X-Men, and the original Avengeers + Cap. Clearly, in this case, you’re the baddest mama-jama in the world by a good long shot.

Anyway…one day, Manhattan gets invaded by, oh, the Kree. They’re not fooling around: they intend to level the city and kill as many humans as they can, except for hot chicks whom they’ll rape first. You’re off in Asgard being thunder-godly when the shit hits the fan, so the lesser heroes are left to fight without you; they, along with the armed forces, fight valiantly but pretty much hopelessly, and in short order get captured or killed or injured too badly to fight.

Until you arrive, that is. Being Thor, you swiftly set about kicking bad-guy ass, as that is, after all, your gig. But in addition to the giant robots and hordes of infantry and so forth, you have horrible fires to deal with; all of Central Park is already ablaze, and the inferno is spreading with ludicrous speed to ther parts of Manhattan. You can’t spare the time to concentrate on the fires, as the children in PS 181 are about to be attacked. But you can’t let the fires continue either.

Do you summon a thunderstom, a blizzard, or a mighty wind?

Rhymers have already been surveyed and no consensus has been reached.

[Chronos]

A windstorm would be worse than useless: All you’ll accomplish is spreading flaming debris around, thereby starting more fires. In fact, large fires often produce their own windstorms, which is one of the reasons they’re so much more difficult than smaller fires.

For the other two, I think it’s mostly just going to depend on which has the greater amount of precipitation, but assuming that’s equal, the colder blizzard will have a slight edge. Practically speaking, I’d probably choose between rain and snow based on which one had the greater tactical advantage for kicking bad-guy ass-- Snow will probably hinder enemies and allies alike more than rain will, and rain would let one call down the thunder, while most snowstorms don’t produce lightning.

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@Chronos

A windstorm would be worse than useless: All you’ll accomplish is spreading flaming debris around, thereby starting more fires. In fact, large fires often produce their own windstorms, which is one of the reasons they’re so much more difficult than smaller fires.

For the other two, I think it’s mostly just going to depend on which has the greater amount of precipitation, but assuming that’s equal, the colder blizzard will have a slight edge. Practically speaking, I’d probably choose between rain and snow based on which one had the greater tactical advantage for kicking bad-guy ass-- Snow will probably hinder enemies and allies alike more than rain will, and rain would let one call down the thunder, while most snowstorms don’t produce lightning.

Windstorm was the minority position, put forth by the youngest of the clan. I don’t see it working well either. Silver-Age Superman could put out a holocaust just by blowing on it without causing collateral damage, but Thor, despite being a god, doesn’t have the same deal.

I don’t think Thor’s going to be using the the storm as a weapon, because he’s not paying attention to it; he’s busy applying hammer to skull of 10,000 kree infantrymen. He’s using the storm to put out the worst of the fires until he’s driven the infantry off, after which he’ll be able to give the fires his full attention and probably decide what to do case by case. So I guess what I’m wondering is whether the blizzard or deluge is going to cause the worst collateral damage?

Also remember that Thor is going to start the storm over the center of the holocaust and then turn his attention to the invading army. He can’t predict how long it will be before he routs them, and the storm, once magicked into existence, will proceed as if it had developed naturally.

[Quartz]

For a fire to thrive it requires fuel, heat, and oxygen. A windstorm is going to vastly increase the last, so that’s no good. The blizzard and the thunderstorm have the advantage of dumping lots of water which deprives the fire of a lot of heat - how much depends upon the volume of water and the respective temperatures. But the thunderstorm is generally shorter in duration and also has the disadvantage of lightning strikes which may themselves start fires. Blizzards have their own problems too: you’ll prevent a lot of emergency vehicles from travelling so quickly an a lot of old people die when it gets cold. But New York is used to heavy snow. So I’ll go for whichever of the blizzard or the storm dumps more water / snow - adjusted for temperature of course as snow, being colder, is a more effective suppressant per unit weight.

[Der_Trihs]

@Chronos

A windstorm would be worse than useless: All you’ll accomplish is spreading flaming debris around, thereby starting more fires. In fact, large fires often produce their own windstorms, which is one of the reasons they’re so much more difficult than smaller fires.

Personally, my first thought was that a windstorm strong enough to blow a burning city out like a candle wouldn’t leave much left of the city to save. For that matter, it wouldn’t leave much left of the Kree invasion force for Thor to smash with his hammer.