What did Scientists decide would happen if a Nuclear Bomb was dropped

[Quixote1818]

inside a Hurricane? It seems a few years ago they did some calculations and decided a Nuclear Bomb would weaken a storm. Anyone know anything about this and if it would weaken the storm then why don't we try it?

[Fescue4u]

1. just weaken it?

I think Id rather be hit by a category 5, than by a radioactive category 3

[cynatnite]

2. I'm hoping for giant fans set along the gulf coast

;)

[Quixote1818]

3. This was all I could find on this. Probably would do shit

Subject: C5c) Why don't we try to destroy tropical cyclones by nuking them ?
During each hurricane season, there always appear suggestions that one should simply use nuclear weapons to try and destroy the storms. Apart from the fact that this might not even alter the storm, this approach neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems. Needless to say, this is not a good idea.

Now for a more rigorous scientific explanation of why this would not be an effective hurricane modification technique. The main difficulty with using explosives to modify hurricanes is the amount of energy required. A fully developed hurricane can release heat energy at a rate of 5 to 20x1013 watts and converts less than 10% of the heat into the mechanical energy of the wind. The heat release is equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes. According to the 1993 World Almanac, the entire human race used energy at a rate of 1013 watts in 1990, a rate less than 20% of the power of a hurricane.

If we think about mechanical energy, the energy at humanity's disposal is closer to the storm's, but the task of focusing even half of the energy on a spot in the middle of a remote ocean would still be formidable. Brute force interference with hurricanes doesn't seem promising.

In addition, an explosive, even a nuclear explosive, produces a shock wave, or pulse of high pressure, that propagates away from the site of the explosion somewhat faster than the speed of sound. Such an event doesn't raise the barometric pressure after the shock has passed because barometric pressure in the atmosphere reflects the weight of the air above the ground. For normal atmospheric pressure, there are about ten metric tons (1000 kilograms per ton) of air bearing down on each square meter of surface. In the strongest hurricanes there are nine. To change a Category 5 hurricane into a Category 2 hurricane you would have to add about a half ton of air for each square meter inside the eye, or a total of a bit more than half a billion (500,000,000) tons for a 20 km radius eye. It's difficult to envision a practical way of moving that much air around.

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5c.html

[arcos]

4. Maybe because the only worst thing after a cat 5 is a radioactive cat 5...

Do you want all areas hit by a hurricane to be inhabitable for hundreds if not thousands of years because of nuclear radiation?