Tornado Zapping
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Over at least the last 1 to 200 years, scientists, shamans and hucksters alike have tried to control the weather. Some succeed, many fail. Hi I'm Dave Thurlow for the Mount Washington Observatory, and this is the Weather Notebook.

You know, it was on Mount Washington, here in New Hampshire, where the first experiment in cloud seeding took place 50 years ago. This attempt at rainmaking was based in real science, unlike the strategies employed by some of the rain "conjurers" as they were known in the early 1900's. The conjurers generally used loud noises or fires or vats of boiling chemicals to make not rain, but themselves look like fools. The Mount Washington cloud seeding experiments led to a semi-successful process of rainfall enhancement‹in some cases.

Snowfall enhancement on the other hand has been hugely successful for skiers. But calling snow-making weather modification is about as absurd as calling air conditioning weather modification.

People have attempted not only to start storms, but to STOP them too. It was once thought that you could drop a nuclear bomb into a hurricane and blow it apart. The problem--not enough energy believe it or not; and oh ya, that little radiation thing.

Speaking of radiation, it figures in the newest of a century's worth of weather modification theories: Tornado zapping. In this case, it is *microwave* radiation fired from satellites that, according to independent physicist Ben Eastlund, can be used to zap tornadoes. By hitting precisely the cool down drafts in thunderstorms, Eastlund feels that the air will warm and shut down the internal cycling of air before it spins into a twister. But what if the microwaves miss the storm and hit someone? Eastlund feels its not enough energy to cause harm. OK. You first.

Find out more about this theory and others at weathernotebook.org.