Science Fiction Story identification - Rockets to fight tornadoes

Cafe Society
1

This is for another friend of mine:

A story about a family from the farm states visiting a space station when they discover a tornado threatens their home. The space station shoots a rocket at the tornado…

He says he read it in the 1980s

2

I thought I would bump this as I’m curious about it.

3

There was a story in Analog magazine in the late 70s oe early 80s called “Jill and the Giant-Killer”

4

… that included fighter jets throwing Very Big Bombs into the tops of tornadoes to break them up. Not quite the same as you mention, but rings a bell. “Jill” from the title was an infant on a farm in the midwest when the rest of her family was killed by a tornado. She grew up to become a US Senator, and got the program funded. I don’t think this is the OP’s story, but it’s what jumped up in my memory.

5

sounds like a bad sci-fi channel movie -

6

Thanks. I found a promising reference to a story by Cordwainer Smith called “On the Storm Planet” but I can’t find a detailed description. Anyone read that story?

7

It may not have been the greatest story ever, or even the greatest Analog story of that year, but I recall it being fun. I remembered it all these years, that’s worth something.

It would be very cool if the OP’s story was by Cordwainer Smith.

8

I didn’t mean it was a ‘bad’ story or that even IF there was a sci-fi channel take on it that it was ‘bad’ - I refer to all of the low budget hammered out movies on the sci-fi channel in that way.

I should have said “sounds like a b movie they would show on the sci-fi channel’” - and I was also implying that I feel like I have seen one (or parts of one) where they did do just what the OP is looking for.

I agree - probably a fun story - probably loads better in print than anything they would try to film.