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H-Bomb vs. Thunderstorm?
A truly whacked-out question... I was speaking with a coworker and it got me wondering. Initial conditions: A typical supercell thunderstorm perhaps 25 miles across, and a one megaton thermonuclear warhead. If this warhead were detonated at the geometric center of the stormcloud what would the effects be on the storm? I am *not* advocating doing this (for obvious reasons); it's just an interesting thought experiment. I have a hunch the superheated fireball would instantly create conditions under which a storm would not be possible. Any ideas?
1 Answer
- growingtediumLv 41 decade agoFavorite Answer
A nuclear weapon releases primaraly photons - heating the air. The pressure wave is brief enough that it woudn't effect the storm dramatically. The temperature change over the entire 25mile area probably wouldn't be enough to change the water capacity of the air enough to stop the raining. And it wouldn't discharge the electric potential between the ground and clouds which causes the lightning. The most significant thing would probably be the updraft. When the bomb goes off, it heats the local air, which rises and fresh cool air is drawn into ground zero to replace the rising hot air. That convection current may be enough to significantly disrupt the storm. And it would potentially magnify the lightning by introducing a violent high friction updraft of particles (as in a volcano). Likely to make a bad day worse one way or the other.
