The U.S. National Hurricane Research Project sought to weaken Hurricane Esther by seeding it with silver iodide, leading to the establishment of Project Stormfury.

National Hurricane Research Project

The National Hurricane Research Project (NHRP) was initiated in 1955 by the United States Weather Bureau in response to the devastating 1954 hurricane season, which saw hurricanes Carol, Edna, and Hazel bring destruction and flooding to New England and the Mid-Atlantic States.…

Hurricane Esther

Category 5 Atlantic hurricane in 1961

Hurricane Esther was the first large tropical cyclone to be discovered by satellite imagery. The fifth tropical cyclone, named storm, and hurricane of the 1961 Atlantic hurricane season, Esther developed from an area of disturbed weather hundreds of miles west-southwest of the…

Cloud seeding

Weather modification that condenses clouds to cause rainfall

Cloud seeding is a type of weather modification that aims to change the amount or type of precipitation, mitigate hail, or disperse fog. The usual objective is to increase rain or snow, either for its own sake or to prevent precipitation from occurring in days afterward.

Silver iodide

Chemical compound

Silver iodide is an inorganic compound with the formula AgI. The compound is a bright yellow salt, but samples almost always contain impurities of metallic silver that give a grey colouration. The silver contamination arises because some samples of AgI can be highly…

Project Stormfury

NOAA weather modification program.

Project Stormfury was an attempt to weaken tropical cyclones by flying aircraft into them and seeding them with silver iodide. The project was run by the United States Government from 1962 to 1983. The hypothesis was that the silver iodide would cause supercooled water in the…