How To Stop A Hurricane: 4 Strange Theories On How To Subdue A Natural Disaster

How To Stop A Hurricane: Get A Nuke Or Call Bill Gates

Hurricane Irene is headed for the East Coast and while you'd be wise to board up those windows and stock up on supplies, nothing is quite as effective as literally stopping the storm in its path.

That's right, we're talking about controlling the weather. And no, you won't need to do your anti-rain dance.

From massive ice blocks to nuclear bombs, here are four strange but supposedly effective strategies for how to stop a hurricane.

1. Hurricane Pacifier
In 2008, Daniel Rosenfeld and colleagues at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem proposed that injecting smoke into the lower regions of a hurricane would start a chain reaction that would condense water vapor and form tiny water droplets that, rather than fall as rain, would be frozen on the outer edges of the storm, ultimately resulting in lower wind speeds.

2. The Bill Gates Strategy
According to a 2009 article from USA Today, five patents put forward by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and colleagues included initiatives "not limited to atmospheric management, weather management, hurricane suppression, hurricane prevention, hurricane intensity modulation, hurricane deflection" to manage storms." One strategy conjured up by the computer nerds concluded that pumping huge quantities of chilly water into the eye of hurricane will make the storm fizzle out.

3. The Giant Ice Cube
Sure, you could combat a hurricane with a massive -- really massive -- block of ice from one of the poles, but as this USA Today explains, "As with most hurricane modification ideas, this one is much easier said than done." Potential complications include measuring just how much ice is necessary and pin pointing where exactly to drop that ice.

4. Nuclear Weapons
It's never a good idea to drop a nuclear bomb, but that doesn't mean it couldn't stop a hurricane. A theory that suggests dropping a nuke into the eye of the storm would heat the cool air and disrupt the convection current, thus subsiding the storm.

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