My husband asked a question today and I don't know the answer. Is it possible for a plane of some kind to drop something in a hurricane when it's out in the ocean that would break it up before it turns into a dangerous hurricane? I think he's talking about some kind of weapon to drop down and go off in such a way as to scatter it.
the NHC has gotten several thousand letters per year, every year, for decades suggesting this.
Short answer is that it would have no effect other than to turn the rain from the storm radioactive. A hurricane would laugh at even the largest nukes.
The only plausible means of human modification is to spread a vast slick of an oil-like subtance over tens of thousands of square miles of ocean that would prevent evaporation, in the path of a storm.
They tried some of that in the 60s...Hurricane Betsy was seeded...and some thought it didn't help at all, and maybe that's why it was so bad...I don't know...but they don't know enough to really dissipate these storms. And who's going to take the chance of making a bad storm worse?
That discussion of dropping a nuclear bomb in the middle of a major hurricane has floated for quite a while....
The basic premise is that it could act like a gust of wind blowing out a match....
Some of the more weather enlightened said it would be more like throwing gasoline on a fire....pushing millions of gallons of vaporized water into the the huricane...
Honestly I haven't a clue but there are a few folks on this thread that could elaborate....
Of course, ya' kinda' have to get past the thought of detonating a thermo-nuclear device in our backyard...
NeverGore :^)