Project Stormfury - an experiment in hurricane weather modification

Abstract

Most scientific experiments in weather modification have sought to increase rain or suppress hail. While a number of investigators have studied and proposed various means of reducing the hazard from severe storms, among these Langmuir (1948, 1950) and Lopez and Howell (1961), few specific field experiments have been carried out, probably for two reasons. Unless a storm system has an "Achilles heel" there is no way in which one can reduce the destructive potential of a storm by a brute force approach. And too little has been known of storm systems to identify a specific Achilles heel, or, in particular, to determine whether one can be identified by experimentation with such techniques as seeding with silver iodide.