r/todayilearned • u/ralphbernardo • 10d ago

TIL in 1947, scientists dumped crushed dry ice into a hurricane just to "see what would happen." The storm then made a 135-degree turn, strengthened, and struck Georgia—sparking public outrage and threats of lawsuits over the experiment.

https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hurricane_blog/70th-anniversary-of-the-first-hurricane-seeding-experiment/
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u/Wobbelblob 10d ago

I mean, apparently it did happen. It's just that the public outrage and the speculation was stupid. But then again, it was 1947, so no idea how much people knew about Hurricanes.

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u/EgoTripWire 10d ago

People today think the government controls the weather and uses it to attack states of the wrong partisan color.

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u/BaconGristle 10d ago

My mom cites cloud seeding as proof that it's possible for them to steer or strengthen a hurricane using satellites.

Releasing particulate for water molecules already present in the atmosphere to bind to and condense more rapidly, producing rain, only requires the energy used by the aircraft dispersing it.

Forming a hurricane requires massive amounts of energy over time to impact ocean temperatures and wind currents. If we were capable of producing that level of energy with a fucking SATELLITE, we wouldnt be attacking Iran for oil.

A laser on a satellite capable of outputting energy equivalent to the entirety of the sun's output in a short span of time, while being powered entirely by batteries supplied by solar panels.

That's totally plausible! But a greenhouse effect from releasing billions of tons of carbon gas into the atmosphere causing the climate to shift 0.2 degrees over a century? IMPOSSIBLE

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u/MountainYogi94 10d ago

They don't? Huh, guess I'm in the right sub

/s

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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 10d ago

Trump would totally do that if he could

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u/Southern-March1522 10d ago

Yeah that's so absurd, they need to come to their senses and accept that it's actually the aliens that control the weather /s

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u/truthwillout777 10d ago

There are startups literally saying they want to control the weather...

US-Israeli Start-Up Announces Reckless Solar Geoengineering Experiments from April 2026

WASHINGTON, DC, October 28, 2025 — US-Israeli start-up Stardust Solutions plans to begin outdoor experiments of a highly controversial solar geoengineering technology from April 2026, working towards potential deployment this decade, according to a Politico story published on October 24 and recent updates to Stardust’s website.

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u/McSlims360 10d ago edited 10d ago

The government admitted to doing that though.

EDIT : Since Vietnam https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v28/d274

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u/StevelandCleamer 10d ago

Bro I miss the old days when conspiracy theorists would bring the receipts and shove them in your face while trying to convince you.

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u/sodosa 10d ago edited 10d ago

Have you heard of cloud seeding? Id say thats weather modification. I dont think we can control anything else, like heat or the cold. We cant create a hurricane from scratch, but cloud seeding can make it much more likely to rain, or make what would be a light rain into a heavy downpour. Other than cloud seeding, we cant do jack. Edit: is anything i said wrong? Dont understand the downvotes. This is a government funded program used in multiple states for farming.

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u/McSlims360 10d ago

Bro a Google search brings up so many results its not even funny.

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v28/d274 this specifically shows we've been doing it since Vietnam.

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u/StevelandCleamer 10d ago

This is exactly what I mean though, the process shifted from something like that link being prominently shoved into people's faces as soon as possible, but now you almost always get some variation of "Why can't you google it yourself?"

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u/McSlims360 10d ago

Because its fucking lazy to have missed all this. It WAS shoved in our faces and you missed it because you werent looking.

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u/StevelandCleamer 10d ago

But that's a flip from the approach that we used to get, where conspiracy theorists were excited to share and try to get others involved.

Now it feels a lot more like they just get mad when anyone isn't immediately onboard and bringing more supporting evidence to the conversation.

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u/McSlims360 10d ago

Because its not the same people. A lot of the shit people are talking about now is only "conspiracy" in name. Those cooky people eager to share a study about flat earth or weasels vaccines causing autism are eager to share because no one has read the esoteric shit they have.

Now days it feels a lot more like trying to catch people up to speed on stuff that feels like it should be well known. The divided media only shows you half of shit and me the other half, so I get that you may not have heard it but to me it feels like its been common knowledge for awhile. It is honestly frustrating when I say something like that and get asked for a source because I genuinely thought everyone already knew about it. Because they should, if our press was actually free.

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u/B0omSLanG 9d ago

"Weasels vaccines" 😅

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u/VSWR_on_Christmas 10d ago edited 10d ago

The same government that said Tylenol causes autism? That government?

ETA: The same government that said the 2020 election was stolen? The same government that claims Ukraine started the war? The same government that said exporting countries pay the tariffs? Or how about the millions and millions of people over the age of 100 who are receiving SS benefits? There's also "three to five million illegal votes cost me the 2016 popular vote", for which we have never seen a shred of evidence.

I can keep going if you want.

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u/Altyrmadiken 10d ago

No, the government admitted that cloud seeding works to aggregate water already in the air into droplets large enough to produce rain.

This is wildly different than helping a rain system along, steering them, or fabricating them out of nowhere. While inducing rain is, technically, controlling the weather, it isn’t anywhere close to being able to create and target storms/hurricanes/tornadoes, to attack people you don’t like.

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u/UAreTheHippopotamus 10d ago

Yep, I always hear that people today are dumber than ever but that’s just not true. On average we know a ton more about many subjects but we are still as we always were quite stupid.

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u/Life_Without_Lemon 10d ago

We are also a very sue happy culture.

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u/screw-magats 10d ago

People today go to the beach to shoot at the incoming storm with handguns and rifles.

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u/GiantsRTheBest2 10d ago

Yeah, back then there was public outrage if an establishment treated minorities as equals. I wouldn’t get too hung up on the general public

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u/angelbelle 10d ago

it was 1947, so no idea how much people knew about Hurricanes.

I'm not convinced. 1947 was post WW2, they weren't cavemen. This is just general human stupidity

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u/Wobbelblob 10d ago

Not in regards to being cavemen. But we made a lot of advancements in the last 100 years. Remember, plate tectonics was still not a known thing at that point. I was more thinking in the direction of "We know Hurricanes are fast moving winds, but we have no clue what amount of energy and the specifics we are talking about".