Savannah Hurricane of 1947

[tsubaki]

http://www.wsav.com/story/26798630/s...ricane-of-1947

This Day in Weather History... Back in 1947, the Cape Sable hurricane, sometimes known informally as Hurricane King, made landfall just south of Savannah. This storm went down in the history books in a big way. It was the first tropical cyclone to be 'modified' by the government, and many believe this caused the storm to hit the Georgia coast.

The government plan was called Project Cirrus. It was a collaboration of the United States Weather Bureau, the US Army Signal Corps, the Office of Naval Research and the US Air Force.

Many government scientists didn't believe the project would ever take off, but it did. The first attempt to modify a hurricane was on October 13, 1947. It was on the Cape Sable hurricane, which was heading west to east and out to sea.

An airplane flew along the rain bands of the hurricane and dropped around 80 pounds of crushed dry ice into the clouds. This is called 'seeding.' Cloud seeding is the attempt to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds. In most cases, the intent to create more precipitation.

Well after the plane dropped the dry ice, the hurricane changed direction and made landfall near Savannah. Tides were up to 12 feet. There was significant damage to nearly 1500 buildings, and one person was killed. The storm system finally fell apart over Alabama. Total damage was $3.26 million.

As you can imagine, many people got very upset. After all, this hurricane was supposed to head out to sea. Many claimed the track reversal had been caused by human intervention. Project Cirrus was canceled. Lawsuits were threatened.

The lawsuits, however, never went anywhere. Back in 1906, another storm system took a similar path. Also, some say the hurricane had already begun to turn when seeding began.

Despite the opinion of Project Cirrus and the outcome, cloud seeding is still used very much today. It's used to help a drought situation and to increase the snow pack in a mountainous region. Some attempts are more successful than others.