Over the weekend, a sitting Representative in the U.S. House tweeted this out:
That generated a ton of messages in my inbox. I even had someone ask me at the grocery store today, "Can we (meteorologists) control Hurricanes?"
I want to clear something up right now... We CANNOT control the weather. More specifically, we cannot control the path of a hurricane. And here's why I believe it won't happen for a very long time. It all comes down to energy.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a hurricane's winds can generate 1.5 x 1012 Watts. That is HALF the world's energy generation in a year.
Here's a link to that article. You might be saying, "Don! NOAA is part of the government. Of course, they'd say that!" So, I went to a different source.
The science website How Stuff Works is run by independent scientists with over 2,000 contributing authors. A typical hurricane can release 6x1014 Watts of power through clouds and rain. That's 200 times the total electrical generating capacity of the entire planet, and that's one storm.
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Why do I mention how much energy these storms generate? Because those are HUGE numbers. We cannot create enough energy to counter the power in these storms. Period.
Another viewer mentioned that "the energy generated by the sun is used by solar panels on satellites." Really? The answer is again... No. It's just not possible.
Again, let's look at the numbers. The largest manmade object in space is the International Space Station. It's the size of an American football field, approximately 1.32 acres. We can see it as it orbits the Earth. It's THAT big.
Now, let's look at the largest solar panel farm in the world. It's located in Xinjiang, China. It's 151 times larger than the ISS and about the size of New York City. It can generate 5 GW of power and is THE biggest solar generator in the world. How much is 5GW of power? That's enough to power Miami. That is a big number. Still, it's 433GW shy of what it takes to power our country.
If Earth's most prominent solar generator can't make power for just our country, how is there an array of them in space large enough to generate 100 times that amount? There isn't. And even if they were there, we could spot it from the Earth's surface. After all, we can see the ISS.
But what about HAARP? (If you want to learn more, click here.) It's sending energy up into the atmosphere. Yes, it is. It can generate 3.6MW of power. (That's the published amount.) Even if it can generate 10x more than what is published, that's still not enough to power our country for a year, let alone counter the energy inside a Hurricane.
I will concede that we can control certain types of weather. If atmospheric conditions are correct, we can release a substance like silver iodide into the atmosphere, either through burning particles on the ground or from aircraft. Those particles form condensation nuclei and generate rain or snow. They CANNOT generate a giant storm, like a hurricane.
According to the website livescience.com, the U.S. government used this technique to try to prolong the monsoon season in 1974 in Vietnam. The site also claims cloud seeding was used in China during the 2008 Olympics.
There are other small ways we affect the weather. Just ask a fruit farmer about a hail cannon. Many swear by them. Again, that affects the weather on a microscopic scale, not a storm that is hundreds of miles across.
Finally, I am NOT part of the machine or a conspiracy. I'm a meteorologist who has talked and learned about the weather for 30+ years. It's what I know, and it's what I do.
Will we be able to control giant systems one day?
It would be great NEVER to see a tornado or hurricane take a life. Do I think it will happen in my lifetime? Nah, but what do I know? I'm just a guy who talks about the weather.
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