Weather modification did not make Hurricane Helene

Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida on Sept. 26, killing at least 40 people and leaving a four-state swath of destruction.

Before the hurricane’s impact, a social media user said in a Sept. 25 post that it was human-made. “So, today we’re going to hit on this hurricane that’s going up into Florida and maybe figure out who’s causing it,” the narrator said as an image of the storm’s projected path appeared behind him.

He cited a 1947 hurricane named “King” and said it had the “exact same path” as Helene. Hurricane King was the subject of an experiment conducted by the U.S. Air Force and General Electric Co. called “Project Cirrus.” 

“Hurricane Helene? Weather modification?” the caption read.

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There’s no proof that Hurricane Helene was formed through weather modification. Bart Geerts, professor at the University of Wyoming Department of Atmospheric Science, told PolitiFact that’s “false.”

“NOAA confirms that there are no weather modification activities that could have resulted in Hurricane Helene. Hurricanes form on their own given the right conditions and that was the case with Helene,” Monica Allen, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s public affairs director, told PolitiFact. 

Allen cited Project Stormfury, a NOAA project in the 1960s that “involved seeding existing hurricanes.” Attempted on four hurricanes, the project studied how seeding clouds with silver iodide could lead to a decrease in the hurricane’s strongest winds.

“This project ended in 1983 because it had, at best, mixed results, and there were concerns about unintended consequences,” Allen said. “Since then, NOAA has done no weather modification.”

Hugh Willoughby, who was involved in Project Stormfury, told PolitiFact, “As far as I know, nobody in the U.S. is undertaking hurricane modification, or even has the capability.” Willoughby is a distinguished research professor at the Florida International University Department of Earth and Environment and formerly directed NOAA’s hurricane research division.

According to the Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory, Project Cirrus — the project the video cited — was an agreement between General Electric Research Laboratory, the Naval Research Laboratory and U.S. Army Signal Corps to “seed” clouds and fog by dumping dry ice on them and finding out what would happen.

The project focused on a hurricane that struck Florida on Oct. 12, 1947. Miami’s Air Force Hurricane Office designated the storm “King,” a moniker derived from the  military’s phonetic alphabet during a period before hurricanes were named as they are now.

The day after the hurricane exited the state and was projected to continue out to sea without affecting any more people, aircraft flew out and dumped dry ice into the hurricane’s clouds. The hurricane soon swerved west and gained strength. It made landfall in Georgia on Oct. 15, 1947, causing one death and millions in damage to Georgia and South Carolina.

The head of General Electric Research Laboratory believed the storm changed course because of the experiment, but the weather bureau chief at the time, Dr. Francis Reichelderfer, disagreed. Willoughby said the Project Stormfury investigators were “very cautious” after what happened with Project Cirrus, “even though it is unlikely that seeding had anything to do with the change in track.”

After Project Cirrus came Project Stormfury,  the findings from which showed that “cloud seeding had little prospect of success” and that it was difficult to determine whether the changes happened because of the experiment or because of the hurricanes’ natural behavior.

Willoughby said the project was abandoned because “its scientific basis was discredited.”

We rate the claim that Hurricane Helene was a product of weather modification Pants on Fire!