
Cant we just nuke the tornadoes? - cryptozeus
Ok thats a hypothetical question but every year more and more massive tornadoes kill hundreds of lives. Does anyone know if any research is being done to stop or disrupt them from happening ?
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tptacek
This question is so common that NOAA actually has an answer for it on their
website:

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

Short, pithy answer: nuking tornadoes would just create radioactive tornadoes.

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dllthomas
Not quite. "While both tropical cyclones and tornadoes are atmospheric
vortices, they have little in common."

<http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/L1.html>

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tptacek
Oh, I missed that! Sorry, I remembered this link from before, but I must have
first learned about it during hurricane season instead of tornado season.

Long story short: go ahead and nuke the tornadoes!

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dllthomas
Yeah, although I'd love to see numbers I would be far less surprised if a nuke
could disperse a tornado. Having said that, I'd worry about the nuke doing a
good deal of damage to the surrounding area itself, and also (quite obviously)
about fallout and such.

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molecule
Sure, but the consequences would be significantly worse. In order to be a
threat to people, a tornado must be near a populated area. A nuclear blast
near a populated area would inflict upon that population: a blast wave,
firestorm, catastrophic winds from pressure differences, ionizing radiation,
and radioactive fallout, the latter of which would result in poisoning and
irradiation of inhabitants for decades, resulting in cancer and genetic
mutations.

<http://www.epa.gov/radiation/rert/nuclearblast.html>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions>

[http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Would_a_nuclear_bomb_destroy_a_tor...](http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Would_a_nuclear_bomb_destroy_a_tornado)

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tokenizer
Every year tornadoes become more prevalent and massive? Source?

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Someone
No. Source: <http://www.spc.noaa.gov/publications/mccarthy/tor30yrs.pdf>:
_Finally, it will be seen that the number of strong and violent tornadoes has
not varied much since 1970, and that long-track and very-long-track tornadoes
as defined by the Illinois State Water Survey remain a very low percentage of
all tornadoes reported. [...] The increase in reported tornado frequency
during the early 1990s corresponds to the operational implementation of
Doppler weather radars. Other non- meteorological factors that must be
considered when looking at the increase in reported tornado frequency over the
past 33 years are the advent of cellular telephones; the development of
spotter networks by NWS offices, local emergency management officials, and
local media; and population shifts._

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semerda
Blast it with beams of microwaves from a fleet of satellites heating the cold
downdrafts. Covered in PopSci 10 year ago.
[http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2003-07/how-destroy-
to...](http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2003-07/how-destroy-tornado)

Considering that there are on average 1,300 tornados in USA per year moving
people consistently is just too much resource drain.

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t0
A better solution would be to move people out of harms way quicker. You can't
stop them, but you can certainly avoid them.

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cryptozeus
Yeh but we still have millions of dollar in damages. These people have to
start their life from scratch. Insurance dont even cover everything and takes
months before they get the money. (Saw enough people talk about this on news
interview). By the way previous tornado came and ppl had only 16 min to get
out. That is not enough time for anything.

