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 What are scientists doing to prevent hurricanes from reaching land? If you can't answer this question please refer me to someone who can.
Answer Dear Ayla:
In a nutshell nothing. Years ago back during the late 1940's through the 1970's U.S. scientists worked on the problem of trying to reduce the intensity of hurricanes. The first hurricane seeded during 1947 failed to cause the hurricane to weaken and it plowed into Savannah Georgia. Non meteorolgists claimed that the attempt at seeding caused the hurricane to move west instead of moving north. This turned out to be totally false. So, that project with scrapped due to the lack of knowlege about the internal structure of the hurricane. Then in 1961 the government started a program called "Storm Fury". This program was created to understand the workings of hurricanes and create a way to weaken hurricanes. Hurricanes are huge energy machines. The average hurricane with winds of near 100 mph has the 24 hour energy equivalent of 400 twenty -megaton hydrogen bombs. The large scale wind flow that guides these monsterous energy machines is even larger. So, the amont of energy necessary to change the structure or direction of a hurricane even by 10-20 percent is incredable. We just don't have the means to do this. The seeding of hurricanes was continued on a few hurricanes during the 1960's and 1970's. But only one storm seemed to react to the seeding. But, as soon as the hurricane recovered from the seeding it ramped back up to the same intensity. There are some scientists who now suggest that we re-visit seeding hurricanes to weaken them. But, there is no program in place at this time . Hurricanes help balance the earth's heat energy cycle by helping to transport warm moist air out of the tropics northward into the more northern latitudes. This process has to occur or else the global energy balance will be disrupted leading to droughts or flooding rainfall in other places. Many parts of the world including the United States need hurricanes to bring needed rainfall. However, sometimes the rainfall is too much for a given area. After this season there will be a lot of discussion on the possibility of weather modification including modifying hurricanes. Studies from the storm fury project showed that a 15 percent reduction in winds would reduce the damage of strong hurricanes by 6 billion dollars. An investment of several million dollars would seem to be a good investment. However, many scientists believe the results from project Storm Fury did not clearly show good results. Even the scientists who headed and worked on the project concluded that more study would have to take place. These atmospheric scientists also concluded that any experiments would have to take place on storms well away from land . This will reduce the government's liability incase a seeded hurricane brought damaging wind and damaging flooding to a particular area or property. They also warned that other foreign governments would also object to seeding for many countries depend on hurricanes to bring needed rainfall. Project Storm Fury was closed down in 1983 due to all the political and questionalble results. The project did help establish sending aircraft into hurricanes to conduct research and provide valuable information on a storm's structure and intensity. This information is extremely helpful on determining the future strength and movement of hurricanes
We now know much more about hurricanes than ever before and we now know that we don't have the means by which to weaken or alter a hurricane's movment. This is why we have to build homes and businesses that will withstand hurricanes in hurricane prone areas. We need to re-engineer our utilites such as burying and sealing off electrical wiring so that they do not fail as much or as often in hurricanes. Residents living in hurricane prone areas must take an active role in being fully prepared for hurricanes. This means better understanding how to protect their belongings and lives. We have learned in the past few years that relying only on the government is not the answer.
So, once again science is not going to prevent hurricanes. Just as we cannot prevent earthquakes or volcanoes.
