Somebody at work a couple nights ago posed the question of whether strategically applied nuclear weapons might be able to disrupt the formation of hurricanes in their early formative stages or dissipate one altogether after it’s reached hurricane force. As for me, I have no idea, but I imagine either that they wouldn’t work at all or that radiation damage would be too great on populations and shipping traffic near the target area. But really I have no substantive idea. So I thought I’d toss it out here and see what those better educated in the pertinent areas have to say. I’m about to leave and will be gone for most of the night so thanks in advance for any answers.
“In fact, during its life cycle a hurricane can expend as much energy as 10,000 nuclear bombs!”
If that’s true, seems like a couple of nukes, unless somehow deployed very strategically, cannot derail the hurricane.
What’s worse than a hurricane? A radioactive hurricane.
Coming this Fall: Radioactive Hurricane vs Sharknado
(I really wish that sounded less plausible.)
I’m curious if the original question referred to nuclear bombs (like A bombs) or thermonuclear bombs (H bombs). An H bomb can be more powerful (up to 1,000 times more) so it might be more likely.
This is one of those topics that keeps coming up on this board. The answer is still no.
[ul][li] Can nuclear weapons be used to stop a hurricane?[/li][li]Could an atomic bomb stop a hurricane?[/li] [li]Could a 20 megaton nuclear bomb dropped into the eye of a hurricane wipe it out?[/li][li]Can a nuclear explosion set off in the eye of a hurricane disrupt its intensity?[/li][/ul]
You would have more luck building a giant heat dissipation device.
No heat, No hurricane, and no fallout
Strangely enough, this was not a SyFY movie.
The short answer is that a nuclear explosion would disrupt the hurricane flow just in the localized area … and only for a short period of time … the flow would resume quick enough it would only be the radioactivity to show for the effort …
A hurricane is a giant heat dissipation device.
I’m posting from my phone so I’ll just say it looks like the question has been answered. Thanks all for your comments.
This question comes up so often that NOAA actually has a page about it.
Makes you wonder what kind of people work at the NHC …
Where are you going to put the heat? The several-nuclear-weapons-worth of heat?
So what you’re saying is we need an anti-hurricane. A cold one that spins in the opposite direction?
The kind who have learned, through repeated hard experience, that there *is *such a thing as a dumb question. 
In the documentary Sharknado, they did dissipate a fairly large tornado with nothing more than a propane tank, so a nuke for a hurricane seems reasonable. (Reasonable in the sharknado universe, that is.)
But, yeah, in the end, if the nuke did actually do anything, it would just be adding to the energy of the storm.
You’d be better off dumping ice cubes in the ocean, though it would probably take at least a couple of large coolers full.
Completely estimated math tells me that it would probably take one of those icebergs they compare to states to really make a difference.
Back in the ocean where it came from?
Seriously …
In fact a hurricane that’s over open ocean and becomes stationary will choke out on its own exhaust heat. It only takes a few days.
So if we’re brainstorming on how to “fix” hurricanes, maybe the better thing is to learn how to steer them to a standstill in a safe spot, not how to impede their operation.
A hurricane naturally returns the heat back to the ocean where the ocean is much colder, in part … some heat is used to warm the air where it is colder, and some is radiated out into space … it’s part of the heat transport mechanism moving heat from the equator to the poles and eventually out into space …
There’s nothing inherent in a stationary position that breaks down a hurricane exhaust mechanism … that’s a high pressure system aloft: air flows into the low pressure at the surface, rises in the air column, and exhausts out the high pressure at the top … as long as the steering winds are zero from top to bottom, the hurricane can just sit there chugging right along … it’s wind shear (different steering wind speeds at different altitudes) that can rip hurricanes apart …
Steering winds are caused by the Earth’s rotation and solar flux … momentum and energy levels are a little beyond human’s ability to control …
Houston got lucky … Harvey stalled out when his eye moved over land and quickly slowed down to a Tropical Storm … Wilma (2005) stalled out over the waters off the Yucatan Peninsula and maintained her Category 5 winds … some locations there received 60" of rain in just 24 hours … far far worse than Harvey’s 50" during the entire storm event …
Although Harvey’s motion doesn’t happen very often, it does happen … so no real surprises …
Yeah. It wasn’t meant as a serious suggestion.
Moving *that *much hot air around at will must wait until we’re at least a Kardashiansub[/sub] Type I civilization. 
Now I’m wondering if, in all his crazy stories, Superman has ever dealt with a hurricane.
Sure, that would work. Have fun making one.