Hurricane-Busters” Fail
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[URRICANE areas in the South Pacific cannot yet be aided by ence some weather experts lieve that even an H-Bomb would ve little dissipating effect on a 11-developed hurricane.
For several years intensive re irch has been going on in the lited States to see whether the rricanes which form in the ribbean or Atlantic each summer d sweep inland doing enormous mage, cannot be broken up in fir early stages. fhis hope came with the discovery it certain types of cloud could made to precipitate their rain jr drought-stricken areas by ding them from an aircraft (or means of rockets or projectiles m the ground) with dry ice, rer iodide, or certain other jmicals. Australian meteorologists m to have concentrated on in itigating the drought-breaking isibilities of this technique, cently, Australian and American mtists carried out joint tests in waii. n the United States, the New rk University and the Office of val Research recently completed ong series of “hurricane busting” »eriments, which were interesting ut completely unsuccessful, is of dry ice and silver iodide :e dropped from aircraft, and Dke generators at points along East Coast belched iodide en smoke into the air at over a nine months period see if approaching storms could modified or their direction of vement changed. Conclusion at i of tests: “No evidence of any ?e-scale meteorological effects i to seeding”. lut if the Big Boys cannot be ten, there are many farmers who convinced that the Little Boys rdinary thunderstorms—can. 111 through last summer, fruit tners near the NSW-Queensland der bombarded—successfully they —the destructive thunderstorms t approached their area. The ipons of attack were silver ide loaded rockets imported from nee, where the method is very iular. The effect is to cause thunder-head to dissipate into a, or deposit its hail, before iving directly over the orchards, ess enthusiastic about these 'm-busting activities are the )ts flying the Sydney-Brisbane te who protested strongly hast danger to aircraft from rockets.