Prepared for Frankenstorm?

[Cdnwolf]

http://news.yahoo.com/east-coast-gri...--finance.html

I was just thinking... wouldn't this be a great time to launch a sneak nuke attack!! And then it got me to thinking the effects of fallout during a hurricane.

[Olefin]

One idea of what a hurricane could do in a Twilight 2000 world - the HMS Bounty replica tall ship that was built in 1962 for the Mutiny on the Bounty film and was in Pirates of the Caribbean just sunk off Cape Hatteras today during the storm. Think the USS Constitution replica that is in the Grenada module and what would happen in a similar storm.

[Cdnwolf]

LATEST PICTURES

[Cdnwolf]

[WallShadow]

the core (it won't have an eye by then) will be passing directly over here in about 8-12 hours, then mosey up northward into New York.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Cdnwolf

I was just thinking... wouldn't this be a great time to launch a sneak nuke attack!! And then it got me to thinking the effects of fallout during a hurricane.

Even just trying to model the blast and damage patterns of the initial strike could get "interesting" when you throw in such a powerful storm. Makes me wonder what a nuke going off at the eye would do to it...

[The Rifleman]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Even just trying to model the blast and damage patterns of the initial strike could get "interesting" when you throw in such a powerful storm. Makes me wonder what a nuke going off at the eye would do to it...

Thats a good question. I know that radiation is worn down by wet weather as it washes away the particles, however, its also carried by wind.... my gues is that it would toss things everywhere and then wash some away, leaving pockets of radiation with no pattern...

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Even just trying to model the blast and damage patterns of the initial strike could get "interesting" when you throw in such a powerful storm. Makes me wonder what a nuke going off at the eye would do to it...

Guess what? There were in fact some idiots in the DoD in the 60s and 70s who actually thought they could use a nuke to blow apart a hurricane, and there would be no repercussions

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Guess what? There were in fact some idiots in the DoD in the 60s and 70s who actually thought they could use a nuke to blow apart a hurricane, and there would be no repercussions

I wonder what the immediate results of that would have been (ignoring the blast damage, EMP, radiation, etc). Would it have disrupted the storm, intensified it, or been little more than a mild hiccup to it?

[HorseSoldier]

Having finally been discharged from Walter Reed and sent back to Alaska, I am 100% ready for it . . .

[Graebarde]

Originally Posted by Cdnwolf

That almost looks like a mushroom cloud behind Liberty.

[Cdnwolf]

It was a so so photoshopped picture.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

I wonder what the immediate results of that would have been (ignoring the blast damage, EMP, radiation, etc). Would it have disrupted the storm, intensified it, or been little more than a mild hiccup to it?

I don't know, but I know we shouldn't try any large or even medium-scale weather modification or disruption. Weather is nature's way of distributing heat and dissipating energy. Maybe you'll successfully blow apart a hurricane --but the energy that the hurricane would have dissipated will simply manifest itself elsewhere, probably as something else nasty -- or join with some other weather to make something truly nasty. Meteorology and weather prediction are governed bu Chaos Theory, which pretty much means that weather prediction is very difficult (the NWS uses some of the most powerful computers on the planet, and still can't reliably forecast more than 72 hours ahead -- long-term forecasts are more educated guesswork than anything else. Don't you ever wonder why your local meteorologist is wrong so often?

[bobcat]

hey im not the only one who thought a hurricane would make a great cover for an invasion. with essential services down and ost potential sources of resistance busy with recovery what few people actually take the time to notice the fact you've invaded would be more likely to ask you for help with fixing their house or getting the tree off of their car to care that you've usurped control of the area.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Don't you ever wonder why your local meteorologist is wrong so often?

Actually down here they're more often right than wrong, so often it scares me...

Maybe their job is easier because of the pristine climatic conditions - the cleanest air in the world can be found just a hundred miles or so upwind (west) of me. Can't say much for the quality downwind though... (that might explain why Targan left New Zealand)

Launching an invasion under the cover of a serious disaster such as the current storm might run into more problems than it solves - flooded roads for example, the exact pattern of which are difficult to predict in the time frame of planning an invasion, are likely to cause as many difficulties for the invaders as faced by locals. More probably since the locals at least know the back roads....

[mikeo80]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Even just trying to model the blast and damage patterns of the initial strike could get "interesting" when you throw in such a powerful storm. Makes me wonder what a nuke going off at the eye would do to it...

Probably not much of a result.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_...nitude_(energy)

IF I read this article correctly, (I am not a expert in energy production )

One day of rain from an average hurricane is 1000x more energy released than a 50MT Tsar Bomba blast.

So, if I read this right, hurricane Sandy (NOT an average hurricane ) would not even be affected by a nuke. It would probably take a good chunk of our nuclear arsenal to have an effect on a hurricane.

My $0.02

Mike

[Schone23666]

Having witnessed the effects of Sandy firsthand, I would say that I very much doubt a nuke or two would have had much effect, though granted a storm this size was rather unprecedented, hence the media-coined term "Frankenstorm". It annoys me how the media use to love labels like this to sell their "if it bleeds, it's a read" articles, but that's a discussion for another time.

When Sandy hit, I was one of the few crazy enough to venture outside (Disclaimer: DO NOT try this at home when a hurricane or tornado hits) to check one or two things...the wind was literally HOWLING so damn loud I could barely hear myself think.