About Dan Kottlowski Expertise Dan Kottlowski is one of AccuWeather`s Expert Senior Forecasters, and is an expert in meteorology.He trains future weather forecasters, oversees the service`s television forecasts, and is heard daily on radio stations throughout the South and Southwest.
Experience An AccuWeather forecaster since 1976, Dan now manages AccuWeather's forecaster training program and oversees the millions of bits of satellite data that the organization's forecaster's receive every day.He is the Director of AccuWeather's Television Briefing Service and oversees the forecasts that millions of television viewers see and hear daily.
Dan attended Purdue University, where he earned his B.S. in Meteorology in 1976.
In his spare time, Dan volunteers with the local Boy Scouts.He enjoys hiking, biking, camping with his family, and astronomy.
Question I've always had a fascination with weather and lately I've been reading about cloud seeding. My question is could it be possible to use the opposite theory to say dissolve a hurricane? My idea is to drop a liquid nitrogen type bomb into the eye of the hurricane creating a dramatic drop in temperature which would in turn reduce the destructiveness.
Answer Dear Jerry:
The amount of energy in one hurricane is approximately equal to 100 atomic bombs. A bomb creates heat when exploded and you would be adding heat and not chill which would actually cause the hurricane to intensify. In the 1950's through the 1970's reasearch was conducted during the project known as "Storm Fury". They only seeded a half dozen hurricanes with dry ice and silver iodide and only seeded one hurricane successfully. The data gathered during this seeding showed that the hurricane showed no measureable signs of change. That hurricane made a sharp turn and instead of moving into Florida slammed into the Carolinas. Many people thought the seeding caused the hurricane to change course. However, researchers discovered the seeding did nothing. What they concluded was that it would take several air craft perhaps dozens of planes to seed the eye of a hurricane all at the same tiime without crashing into each other. That would be an impossible task. What needs to be developed is some kind of compound that expands 10-20 times and significantly cools at the same time. Such a compound could be delivered into the eyewall of a hurricane with maybe a half dozen aircraft. But , even the logistics for that would be very difficult. The most planes flown into hurricanes now a days at once is 3 and they are spaced out several miles apart. In order to seed the eye of a hurricane you would have to have these planes go into the eye about the same time and within a couple of miles of each other and that would be extemely dangerous. It would not be surprising if some kind of seeding attempt were to be made within the next few years if funded by the government and conducted by the airforce using awips planes to manuver the planes. Only a certain kind of plane can withstand the turbulance. The C130's used have re-inforced wings. We would have to develop a fleet of these planes to conduct the project.
