57 years ago today as Hurricane Esther wandered over the Atlantic Ocean, the United States National Hurricane Research Project dropped eight cylinders of silver iodide into the hurricane's eye, about 400 miles northeast of Puerto Rico, in an experiment to try to weaken it. The experiment seemed to slow the wind speed by 10% and led to Project Stormfury to continue the experiment. After a decade the project was discontinued without having created a working solution although it did lead to innovations in hurricane predictions and monitoring.
Esther was the first hurricane to be discovered by satellite imagery, first spotted by the Television Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS) III which was launched in 1960.
In the event despite warnings of what had been a Category 4 hurricane making landfall in the Carolinas (and subsequently up the coast to Maine), Esther stayed primarily off land and meandered along the coast and the actual damage was relatively minor. It first made landfall very near where the current Florence did in the corner of southeastern North Carolina. I can remember preparing for it.
Meanwhile on the other side of the earth, on the same day, Typhoon Nancy was slamming into the island of Honshu in Japan with possibly the strongest winds ever recorded (estimated 215 mph) in what would now be called "Category 5" leading to tens of thousands of homes damaged/destroyed, hundreds of thousands flooded, and over a thousand ships battered and destroyed as well. Nancy collectively attained a moving speed of 55 knots (65 mph) to go with its absurdly intense winds.
Esther was the first hurricane to be discovered by satellite imagery, first spotted by the Television Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS) III which was launched in 1960.
In the event despite warnings of what had been a Category 4 hurricane making landfall in the Carolinas (and subsequently up the coast to Maine), Esther stayed primarily off land and meandered along the coast and the actual damage was relatively minor. It first made landfall very near where the current Florence did in the corner of southeastern North Carolina. I can remember preparing for it.
Meanwhile on the other side of the earth, on the same day, Typhoon Nancy was slamming into the island of Honshu in Japan with possibly the strongest winds ever recorded (estimated 215 mph) in what would now be called "Category 5" leading to tens of thousands of homes damaged/destroyed, hundreds of thousands flooded, and over a thousand ships battered and destroyed as well. Nancy collectively attained a moving speed of 55 knots (65 mph) to go with its absurdly intense winds.
