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And we’re back for our second season!
In this episode of the Weather Whys Podcast, host Ed Oswald delves into the fascinating history of Project Stormfury, the U.S. Government’s ambitious attempt to weaken hurricanes through cloud seeding in the 1960s and 70s. Ed explores this endeavor’s origins, experiments, and eventual downfall, shedding light on the misunderstandings and natural phenomena that influenced these efforts.
He discusses the scientific and ethical questions surrounding weather modification and explains why controlling hurricanes remains beyond our current capabilities. This episode provides a detailed look at one of the more intriguing chapters in meteorological history.
This is also available as a video on YouTube!
[00:00:00] Ed Oswald: Welcome to the Weather Whys Podcast. I’m your host Ed Oswald. This year, we’re doing things a bit differently. We’ll be highlighting content from our YouTube channel in audio form. All our shows are available on YouTube, and we’ve provided the link in the description. We hope you enjoy today’s episode.
[00:00:28] Did you know that in the 1960s, the U.S. Government tried to control hurricanes by seeding them with silver iodide? It actually happened, and here’s the story.
[00:00:39] Rumors have swirled about government programs controlling the weather for decades. Conspiracy theories claim hurricanes can be tamed or redirected at will, including by prominent media figures and politicians. But like any good conspiracy theory, it starts with a kernel of truth.
[00:00:55] With weather modification in the news for better or worse at the moment, we wanted to dive deeper into whether it’s really possible.
[00:01:02] This is the story of Project Stormfury, a real government program that tried to modify the weather, not to control it, but to weaken one of nature’s most destructive forces, hurricanes.
[00:01:13] In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the U.S. Government faced an ongoing threat. Hurricanes were increasing in frequency and their destructive power. The idea of stopping these storms became a dream for meteorologists and the military alike.
[00:01:27] The plan was based on cloud seeding, a technique that involves dispersing substances, like silver iodide into clouds to encourage rainfall. The theory was that if silver iodide were dropped into the storm’s clouds, it would disrupt the internal processes of a hurricane, causing it to weaken. The goal wasn’t to stop the storm completely, but to reduce its power.
[00:01:47] Project Stormfury wasn’t the first attempt to alter hurricanes, though. In fact, weather modification efforts began even earlier.
[00:01:55] In 1947, a joint project between General Electric and the U S military known as Project Cirrus saw the first ever hurricane seeding experiment. In October of that year, a hurricane off the coast code named “king,” was seeded with dry ice in an attempt to weaken the storm.
[00:02:11] The experiment, though groundbreaking, was controversial. The hurricane, instead of weakening, unexpectedly changed direction and made landfall in Georgia. This led some to believe that the seeding caused the storm to veer off its original path, although that was never proven.
[00:02:25] Following the Cirrus disaster, weather modification took a back seat, at least publicly. The department of defense and department of commerce would continue seeding efforts through this period, most notably hurricane Esther in 1961. The first drop of silver iodide in the eyewall was followed by a drop the following day that missed. A drop in strength of 10% was observed after the eyewall drop, with no change the second day. This was interpreted as a ” success.”
[00:02:51] Esther would lead to the creation of Project Stormfury in 1962. For 21 years, planes flew into the hearts of hurricanes, releasing silver iodide crystals in an attempt to artificially stimulate the formation of ice in the storms clouds. The hope was that this would cause the storms energy to disperse across a larger area, weakening the intense winds at its core.
[00:03:11] Robert Simpson, the man behind the Safir Simpson scale, would even serve as Stormfury’s first director.
[00:03:18] There were several guidelines using which storms to seed. The hurricane had have a less than 10% chance of approaching inhabited land within a day, it had to be a range of the seeding aircraft, And had to be a fairly intense storm with a well-formed eye.
[00:03:33] The concept was to make seeding candidates rare, and that was the case. The first candidate was hurricane Beulah in August, 1963. Mistakes were made on the first drops, and no change in strength was recorded. However, on the second flight ,seeders hit their targets, and the eyewall fell apart and was replaced by a larger one, followed by a 20% drop in winds.
[00:03:53] Further experiments were not conducted until hurricane Debbie in 1969. This was perhaps the project’s best candidate. A total of 13 planes would fly through and seed the storm in a three-day period. On the first day, wind speeds fell by 31%. On the second day, wind speeds fell by 18%.
[00:04:11] This would lead to calls for more research, but the criteria made it extremely difficult to find candidate storms. So the only evidence was the “success” of Debbie.
[00:04:21] But that success wasn’t what researchers thought it was. Upon further investigation, scientists realized that changes in the hurricanes weren’t necessarily caused by the seeding. Many of the storms that were studied exhibited natural fluctuations in strength that could not be reliably linked to the experiments.
[00:04:38] What researchers may have stumbled upon was the natural cycle of hurricanes now known as the eyewall replacement cycle. Remember that at the time of this project, hurricane hunters had only been flying into these storms for less than two decades, and nowhere near as frequently as they do now. Weather satellites were only beginning to be launched.
[00:04:55] There was just a lot that we didn’t know about the weather, or could see.
[00:04:59] By the early 1980s, it became clear that the ambitious goals of Stormfury were beyond our capabilities. Hurricanes couldn’t be reliably weakened by human intervention. After two decades of experiments, Stormfury was officially canceled in 1983, although seeding flights had stopped 12 years earlier.
[00:05:16] While Project Stormfury was a failure, that hasn’t stopped researchers from cloud seeding on a smaller scale. Here, there is evidence in studies that it can increase the amount of precipitation, but it’s still not conclusive.
[00:05:29] Cloud seeding is also controversial, as it involves changing natural processes, and may cause too much rain to fall, leading to flooding.
[00:05:36] So, what can we learn from this? For one, both the private sector and the government has indeed attempted to manipulate the weather, though not in the sinister ways conspiracy theorists suggest.
[00:05:47] If you still think it’s possible, consider this. We’re dealing with a storm typically hundreds of miles across. A plane is a small blip in this immense storm, and would be incapable on its own spreading enough material to make a difference.
[00:06:00] The science of meteorology is far more advanced today, allowing us to explain what researchers thought they were seeing then differently. Sure, cloud seeding is real, but weather control is not.
[00:06:10] The government can’t control the weather, and Projects Cirrus and Stormfury prove it. But as climate change accelerates and storms grow more intense, the dream of weakening these powerful natural forces continues to captivate scientists and governments alike.
[00:06:24] Who knows what future discoveries may hold. For now, we remain at the mercy of the elements. But one thing is certain: we’ve tried.
[00:00:28] Did you know that in the 1960s, the U.S. Government tried to control hurricanes by seeding them with silver iodide? It actually happened, and here’s the story.
[00:00:39] Rumors have swirled about government programs controlling the weather for decades. Conspiracy theories claim hurricanes can be tamed or redirected at will, including by prominent media figures and politicians. But like any good conspiracy theory, it starts with a kernel of truth.
[00:00:55] With weather modification in the news for better or worse at the moment, we wanted to dive deeper into whether it’s really possible.
[00:01:02] This is the story of Project Stormfury, a real government program that tried to modify the weather, not to control it, but to weaken one of nature’s most destructive forces, hurricanes.
[00:01:13] In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the U.S. Government faced an ongoing threat. Hurricanes were increasing in frequency and their destructive power. The idea of stopping these storms became a dream for meteorologists and the military alike.
[00:01:27] The plan was based on cloud seeding, a technique that involves dispersing substances, like silver iodide into clouds to encourage rainfall. The theory was that if silver iodide were dropped into the storm’s clouds, it would disrupt the internal processes of a hurricane, causing it to weaken. The goal wasn’t to stop the storm completely, but to reduce its power.
[00:01:47] Project Stormfury wasn’t the first attempt to alter hurricanes, though. In fact, weather modification efforts began even earlier.
[00:01:55] In 1947, a joint project between General Electric and the U S military known as Project Cirrus saw the first ever hurricane seeding experiment. In October of that year, a hurricane off the coast code named “king,” was seeded with dry ice in an attempt to weaken the storm.
[00:02:11] The experiment, though groundbreaking, was controversial. The hurricane, instead of weakening, unexpectedly changed direction and made landfall in Georgia. This led some to believe that the seeding caused the storm to veer off its original path, although that was never proven.
[00:02:25] Following the Cirrus disaster, weather modification took a back seat, at least publicly. The department of defense and department of commerce would continue seeding efforts through this period, most notably hurricane Esther in 1961. The first drop of silver iodide in the eyewall was followed by a drop the following day that missed. A drop in strength of 10% was observed after the eyewall drop, with no change the second day. This was interpreted as a ” success.”
[00:02:51] Esther would lead to the creation of Project Stormfury in 1962. For 21 years, planes flew into the hearts of hurricanes, releasing silver iodide crystals in an attempt to artificially stimulate the formation of ice in the storms clouds. The hope was that this would cause the storms energy to disperse across a larger area, weakening the intense winds at its core.
[00:03:11] Robert Simpson, the man behind the Safir Simpson scale, would even serve as Stormfury’s first director.
[00:03:18] There were several guidelines using which storms to seed. The hurricane had have a less than 10% chance of approaching inhabited land within a day, it had to be a range of the seeding aircraft, And had to be a fairly intense storm with a well-formed eye.
[00:03:33] The concept was to make seeding candidates rare, and that was the case. The first candidate was hurricane Beulah in August, 1963. Mistakes were made on the first drops, and no change in strength was recorded. However, on the second flight ,seeders hit their targets, and the eyewall fell apart and was replaced by a larger one, followed by a 20% drop in winds.
[00:03:53] Further experiments were not conducted until hurricane Debbie in 1969. This was perhaps the project’s best candidate. A total of 13 planes would fly through and seed the storm in a three-day period. On the first day, wind speeds fell by 31%. On the second day, wind speeds fell by 18%.
[00:04:11] This would lead to calls for more research, but the criteria made it extremely difficult to find candidate storms. So the only evidence was the “success” of Debbie.
[00:04:21] But that success wasn’t what researchers thought it was. Upon further investigation, scientists realized that changes in the hurricanes weren’t necessarily caused by the seeding. Many of the storms that were studied exhibited natural fluctuations in strength that could not be reliably linked to the experiments.
[00:04:38] What researchers may have stumbled upon was the natural cycle of hurricanes now known as the eyewall replacement cycle. Remember that at the time of this project, hurricane hunters had only been flying into these storms for less than two decades, and nowhere near as frequently as they do now. Weather satellites were only beginning to be launched.
[00:04:55] There was just a lot that we didn’t know about the weather, or could see.
[00:04:59] By the early 1980s, it became clear that the ambitious goals of Stormfury were beyond our capabilities. Hurricanes couldn’t be reliably weakened by human intervention. After two decades of experiments, Stormfury was officially canceled in 1983, although seeding flights had stopped 12 years earlier.
[00:05:16] While Project Stormfury was a failure, that hasn’t stopped researchers from cloud seeding on a smaller scale. Here, there is evidence in studies that it can increase the amount of precipitation, but it’s still not conclusive.
[00:05:29] Cloud seeding is also controversial, as it involves changing natural processes, and may cause too much rain to fall, leading to flooding.
[00:05:36] So, what can we learn from this? For one, both the private sector and the government has indeed attempted to manipulate the weather, though not in the sinister ways conspiracy theorists suggest.
[00:05:47] If you still think it’s possible, consider this. We’re dealing with a storm typically hundreds of miles across. A plane is a small blip in this immense storm, and would be incapable on its own spreading enough material to make a difference.
[00:06:00] The science of meteorology is far more advanced today, allowing us to explain what researchers thought they were seeing then differently. Sure, cloud seeding is real, but weather control is not.
[00:06:10] The government can’t control the weather, and Projects Cirrus and Stormfury prove it. But as climate change accelerates and storms grow more intense, the dream of weakening these powerful natural forces continues to captivate scientists and governments alike.
[00:06:24] Who knows what future discoveries may hold. For now, we remain at the mercy of the elements. But one thing is certain: we’ve tried.
In this episode:
- 00:00 Introduction to Weather Whys Podcast
- 00:28 The Origins of Weather Modification
- 01:02 Project Stormfury: A Government Experiment
- 01:47 Early Attempts and Controversies
- 02:51 The Successes and Failures of Project Stormfury
- 04:59 The End of Project Stormfury
- 05:16 Modern Cloud Seeding and Its Controversies
- 05:38 Lessons Learned and Future Prospects
Project Stormfury Links
November 11, 2024 ·
By Weather Whys Podcast
In this episode of the Weather Whys Podcast, we delve into the history of Project Stormfury, the U.S. Government's ambitious attempt to weaken hurricanes.