‘Futile and obviously dangerous’: Meteorologists react to Trump suggesting nukes to stop hurricanes

Ryan Maue, another meteorologist, agreed about the idea’s ineffectiveness.

“Detonating a nuclear bomb inside a hurricane would do nothing to disrupt the storm,” he said. “Instead, you now have a radioactive hurricane.”

The report from Axios said the president suggested dropping a nuclear weapon into the eye of a hurricane during a White House briefing. He brought up the bombing idea again during another meeting in 2017, but a National Security Council memo about the discussion makes no mention of nuclear weapons. The idea never made it to the formal policy process.

The 2017 hurricane season was a particularly devastating one — the costliest in U.S. history at more than $200 billion in damages — with powerful storms including Harvey, Irma, and Maria wreaking havoc in places like Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico. The Axios report was published as Tropical Storm Dorian, which is strengthening into a hurricane, could be headed to a still-recovering Puerto Rico.

People have wondered if nuclear bombs could destroy hurricanes for decades. National Geographic has a “surprising history” of the “really bad idea,” which shows Francis Reichelderfer, the head of the U.S. Weather Bureau (now the National Weather Service), saying he could “imagine the possibility” in 1961.

As part of its “Tropical Cyclones Myths Page,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the suggestion resurfaces every hurricane season. But the government agency dismissed nuking hurricanes as being ineffective in stopping them but a good way to unleash radioactive fallout wherever the winds might carry it.

National Hurricane Center specialist Eric Blake reacted to the Axios report by tweeting, “No!” on his personal Twitter account and sharing a link to the NOAA fact sheet.

Marshall Shepherd, a weather and climate expert, tweeted, “Looks like I need to bring this out again #smh,” along with a link to a piece he wrote for Forbes earlier this year titled, “Here’s Why We Cannot Just ‘Nuke’ Hurricanes.”

Another meteorologist, Paul Douglass, further explained why using nuclear devices is a bad idea.

“Hurricanes are the tropic’s pressure relief valves; heat engines converting warm ocean water into wind and cooling rain. A nuke heating air and water to 100,000,000C, the temperature of the sun’s interior, may create a (radioactive) hurricane of unimaginable fury,” he said.

Michael Lowry, an atmospheric scientist who works with Federal Emergency Management Agency, tweeted, “On a serious note this is a dumb and dangerous idea. On a lighter, not completely unrelated note, my wife and I just finished watching Dr. Strangelove for the first time last night.”

Others just had some fun with it.