Project Stormfury

Project Stormfury was an attempt to weaken tropical cyclone

Tropical cyclone

A tropical cyclone is a storm system characterized by a large low-pressure center and numerous thunderstorms that produce strong winds and heavy rain. Tropical cyclones strengthen when water evaporated from the ocean is released as the saturated air rises, resulting in condensation of water vapor...

s by flying aircraft into them and seeding

Cloud seeding

Cloud seeding, a form of intentional weather modification, is the attempt to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds, by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, which alter the microphysical processes within the cloud...

with silver iodide

Silver iodide

Silver iodide is a yellow, inorganic, photosensitive iodide of silver used in photography, in medicine as an antiseptic, and in rainmaking for cloud seeding.-Crystal structure:...

. The project was run by the United States Government from 1962 to 1983.

The hypothesis was that the silver iodide would cause supercooled

Supercooling

Supercooling, also known as undercooling, is the process of lowering the temperature of a liquid or a gas below its freezing point without it becoming a solid....

water

Water

Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...

in the storm to freeze, disrupting the inner structure of the hurricane. This led to the seeding of several Atlantic hurricanes. However, it was later shown that this hypothesis was incorrect. In reality, it was determined most hurricanes do not contain enough supercooled water for cloud seeding to be effective. Additionally, researchers found that unseeded hurricanes often undergo the same structural changes that were expected from seeded hurricanes. This finding called Stormfury's successes into question, as the changes reported now had a natural explanation.

The last experimental flight was flown in 1971, due to a lack of candidate storms and a changeover in NOAA's fleet. More than a decade after the last modification experiment, Project Stormfury was officially canceled. Although a failure in its goal of reducing the destructiveness of hurricanes, Project Stormfury was not without merit. The observational data and storm lifecycle research generated by Stormfury helped improve meteorologists' ability to forecast

Weather forecasting

Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a given location. Human beings have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia, and formally since the nineteenth century...

the movement and intensity of future hurricanes.

Hypothesis

Cloud seeding was first attempted by Vincent Schaefer

Vincent Schaefer

Vincent Joseph Schaefer was an American chemist and meteorologist who developed cloud seeding. On November 13, 1946, while a researcher at the General Electric Research Laboratory, Schaefer modified clouds in the Berkshire Mountains by seeding them with dry ice...

and Irving Langmuir

Irving Langmuir

Irving Langmuir was an American chemist and physicist. His most noted publication was the famous 1919 article "The Arrangement of Electrons in Atoms and Molecules" in which, building on Gilbert N. Lewis's cubical atom theory and Walther Kossel's chemical bonding theory, he outlined his...

. After witnessing the artificial creation of ice crystals, Langmuir became an enthusiastic proponent of weather modification. Schaefer found that when he dumped crushed dry ice

Dry ice

Dry ice, sometimes referred to as "Cardice" or as "card ice" , is the solid form of carbon dioxide. It is used primarily as a cooling agent. Its advantages include lower temperature than that of water ice and not leaving any residue...

into a cloud, precipitation in the form of snow

Snow

Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by...

resulted.

With regard to hurricanes, it was hypothesized that by seeding the area around the eyewall

Eye (cyclone)

The eye is a region of mostly calm weather found at the center of strong tropical cyclones. The eye of a storm is a roughly circular area and typically 30–65 km in diameter. It is surrounded by the eyewall, a ring of towering thunderstorms where the second most severe weather of a cyclone...

with silver iodide

Silver iodide

Silver iodide is a yellow, inorganic, photosensitive iodide of silver used in photography, in medicine as an antiseptic, and in rainmaking for cloud seeding.-Crystal structure:...

, latent heat

Latent heat

Latent heat is the heat released or absorbed by a chemical substance or a thermodynamic system during a process that occurs without a change in temperature. A typical example is a change of state of matter, meaning a phase transition such as the melting of ice or the boiling of water. The term was...

would be released. This would promote the formation of a new eyewall. As this new eyewall was larger than the old eyewall, the winds of the tropical cyclone would be weaker due to a reduced pressure gradient

Pressure gradient

In atmospheric sciences , the pressure gradient is a physical quantity that describes in which direction and at what rate the pressure changes the most rapidly around a particular location. The pressure gradient is a dimensional quantity expressed in units of pressure per unit length...

. Even a small reduction in the speed of a hurricane's winds would be beneficial; as the damage potential of a hurricane increased as the square of the wind speed, a slight lowering of wind speed would have a large reduction in destructiveness.

Due to Langmuir's efforts, and the research of Schaefer at General Electric

General Electric

General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...

, the concept of using cloud seeding to weaken hurricanes gathered momentum. Indeed, Schaefer had caused a major snowstorm on December 20, 1946 by seeding a cloud. This caused GE to drop out for legal reasons. Schaefer and Langmuir assisted the U.S. military as advisors for Project Cirrus, the first large study of cloud physics

Cloud physics

Cloud physics is the study of the physical processes that lead to the formation, growth and precipitation of clouds. Cloud formations are composed of microscopic droplets of liquid water , tiny crystals of ice , or both...

and weather modification. Its most important goal was to try to weaken hurricanes

Tropical cyclone

Project Cirrus

Project Cirrus was the first attempt to modify a hurricane. It was a collaboration of the General Electric

General Electric

General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...

Corporation, the US Army Signal Corps, the Office of Naval Research

Office of Naval Research

The Office of Naval Research , headquartered in Arlington, Virginia , is the office within the United States Department of the Navy that coordinates, executes, and promotes the science and technology programs of the U.S...

, and the US Air Force. After several preparations, and initial skepticism by government scientists, the first attempt to modify a hurricane began on October 13, 1947 on a hurricane that was heading west to east

Boxing the compass

Boxing the compass is the action of naming all thirty-two points of the compass in clockwise order. Such names are formed by the initials of the cardinal directions and their intermediate ordinal directions, and are very handy to refer to a heading in a general or colloquial fashion, without...

and out to sea.

An airplane flew along the rainbands of the hurricane, and dropped nearly 80 pounds (36 kilograms) of crushed dry ice

Dry ice

into the clouds. The crew reported "Pronounced modification of the cloud deck seeded". It is not known if that was due to the seeding. Next, the hurricane changed direction and made landfall near Savannah, Georgia

Savannah, Georgia

Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...

. The public blamed the seeding, and Irving Langmuir

Irving Langmuir

claimed that the reversal had been caused by human intervention. Cirrus was canceled, and lawsuit

Lawsuit

A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...

s were threatened. Only the fact that a system in 1906

1906 Florida Keys hurricane

The 1906 Florida Keys hurricane was a powerful and deadly hurricane that caused major impacts in Cuba and southern Florida. The fifth hurricane and third major hurricane of the season, the storm formed from a system near Barbados on October 4. By October 8, it had intensified into a tropical storm,...

had taken a similar path, as well as evidence showing that the storm had already begun to turn when seeding began, ended the litigation. This disaster set back the cause of seeding hurricanes for eleven years.

Between the projects

The United States Weather Bureau's National Hurricane Research Project

National Hurricane Research Project

The National Hurricane Research Project was initiated in 1955 by theUnited States Weather Bureau in response to the devastating 1954 hurricane season, whichsaw Hurricane Carol, Hurricane Edna, and Hurricane Hazel bring destruction and...

, founded in 1955, had as one of its objectives to investigate the scientific validity of hurricane modification methods. To this end, silver iodide dispensers were tested in Hurricane Daisy in August 1958. The flares were deployed outside of the hurricane eyewall, so this was an equipment test rather than a modification experiment. The equipment malfunctioned in all but one of the flights, and no conclusive data was acquired.

The first seeding experiment since the Cirrus disaster was attempted on September 16, 1961, into Hurricane Esther

Hurricane Esther (1961)

Hurricane Esther was the fifth named storm and fifth hurricane of the 1961 Atlantic hurricane season. A long-lived Category 4 Cape Verde-type hurricane, Esther spent its lifetime offshore, before moving up the East Coast of the United States...

by NHRP and the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

aircraft. Eight cylinders of silver iodide were dropped into Esther's eyewall, and winds were recorded as weakening by 10 percent. The next day, more seeding flights were made. This time, the silver iodide did not fall into the eyewall, and no reduction in windspeed was observed. These two results were interpreted as making the experiment a "success".

The seedings into Hurricane Esther led to the establishment of Project Stormfury in 1962. Project Stormfury was a joint venture of the United States Department of Commerce

United States Department of Commerce

The United States Department of Commerce is the Cabinet department of the United States government concerned with promoting economic growth. It was originally created as the United States Department of Commerce and Labor on February 14, 1903...

and the United States Navy

United States Navy

There were several guidelines used in selecting which storms to seed. The hurricane had to have a less than 10 percent chance of approaching inhabited land within a day; it had to be within range of the seeding aircraft; and it had to be a fairly intense storm with a well-formed eye

Eye (cyclone)

. The primary effect of these criteria was to make possible seeding targets extremely rare.

No suitable storms formed in the 1962 season

1962 Atlantic hurricane season

The 1962 Atlantic hurricane season was the least active since 1939, with only five named storms. Although the season officially began on June 15, the first storm did not form until August 26. Hurricane Alma brushed the outer banks before becoming extratropical southeast of New England,...

. Next year, Stormfury began by conducting experiments on cumulus cloud

Cumulus cloud

Cumulus clouds are a type of cloud with noticeable vertical development and clearly defined edges. Cumulus means "heap" or "pile" in Latin. They are often described as "puffy" or "cotton-like" in appearance. Cumulus clouds may appear alone, in lines, or in clusters...

s. From August 17 to 20 of that year, experiments were conducted in 11 clouds, of which six were seeded and five were controls

Scientific control

Scientific control allows for comparisons of concepts. It is a part of the scientific method. Scientific control is often used in discussion of natural experiments. For instance, during drug testing, scientists will try to control two groups to keep them as identical and normal as possible, then...

. In five of the six seeded clouds, changes were observed that were consistent with the working hypothesis.

On August 23, 1963, Hurricane Beulah was the site of the next seeding attempt. It had an indistinct eyewall. In addition, mistakes were made, as the seedings of silver iodide were dropped in the wrong places. As a consequence, nothing happened. The next day, another attempt was made, and the seeders hit their targets. The eyewall was observed to fall apart and be replaced by another eyewall with a larger radius. The sustained winds also fell by twenty percent. All in all, the results of the experiments on Beulah were "encouraging but inconclusive."

In the six years after Beulah, no seedings were conducted for several different reasons. In 1964, measurement and observation equipment was not ready to be used. The year after that, all flights were used for additional experimentation in non-hurricane clouds.

While out to sea in August of the 1965 Atlantic hurricane season

1965 Atlantic hurricane season

The 1965 Atlantic hurricane season officially began on June 1, 1965, and lasted until November 30, 1965. These dates conventionally delimit the period of each year when most tropical cyclones form in the Atlantic basin....

, Stormfury meteorologists decided that Hurricane Betsy

Hurricane Betsy

Hurricane Betsy was a Category 4 hurricane of the 1965 Atlantic hurricane season which caused enormous damage in the Bahamas, Florida, and Louisiana. Betsy made its most intense landfall near the mouth of the Mississippi River, causing significant flooding of the waters of Lake Pontchartrain into...

was a good candidate for seeding. However, the storm immediately swung towards land, and on September 1, the planned flights were canceled. For some reason, the press was not notified that there were no seedings, and several newspapers reported that it had begun. As Betsy passed close to the Bahamas

The Bahamas

The Bahamas , officially the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is a nation consisting of 29 islands, 661 cays, and 2,387 islets . It is located in the Atlantic Ocean north of Cuba and Hispaniola , northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, and southeast of the United States...

and smashed into southern Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, the public and Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

thought that seeding was underway and blamed Stormfury. It took two months for Stormfury officials to convince Congress that Betsy was not seeded, and the project was allowed to continue. A second candidate, Hurricane Elena, stayed too far out to sea.

After Betsy, two other hurricanes came close to being seeded. Hurricane Faith was considered a likely candidate, but it stayed out of range of the seeding planes. That same year, recon flights were conducted into Hurricane Inez

Hurricane Inez

Hurricane Inez was a deadly, destructive, powerful and very long-lived Cape Verde-type hurricane that carved an erratic path through the Lesser Antilles, Hispaniola, Cuba, the Bahamas, Florida, and Mexico in 1966...

, but there were no seedings. Both the 1967

1967 Atlantic hurricane season

The 1967 Atlantic hurricane season was the first year in which the National Hurricane Center was in operation. The season began on June 1, which was the date when the NHC activated radar stations across the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico...

and 1968 seasons

1968 Atlantic hurricane season

The 1968 Atlantic hurricane season officially began on June 1, 1968, and lasted until November 30, 1968. These dates conventionally delimit the period of each year when most tropical cyclones form in the Atlantic basin....

were inactive. Because of that, there were no suitable seeding targets in either of those two seasons.

There were no more near-seedings until 1969. In the interim, equipment was improved. What once was the primitive method of hand-dumping dry ice was replaced with rocket canisters loaded with silver iodide, and then gun-like devices mounted on the wings of the airplanes that fired silver iodide into the clouds. Observation equipment was improved. Additional reconnaissance data was utilized to modify the working hypothesis. The new theory took cumulus towers outside the eyewall

Eye (cyclone)

into account. According to the revised theory, by seeding the towers, latent heat

Latent heat

would be released. This would trigger the start of new convection, which would then cause a new eyewall. Since the new eyewall was outside the original one, the first eyewall would be choked off of energy and fall apart. In addition, since the new eyewall was broader than the old one, the winds would be lower due to a less sharp pressure difference.

Hurricane Debbie

Hurricane Debbie (1969)

Hurricane Debbie was an intense and long-lived hurricane that formed during August 1969. The fifth tropical cyclone, fourth named storm, third hurricane and second major hurricane of the 1969 Atlantic hurricane season, Debbie formed on August 14 in the southern Atlantic Ocean and took a general...

provided the best opportunity to test the underpinnings of Project Stormfury. In many ways it was the perfect storm for seeding: it did not threaten any land; it passed within range of seeding aircraft; and was intense with a distinct eye. On August 18 and again on August 20, thirteen planes flew out to the storm to monitor and seed it. On the first day, windspeeds fell by 31%. On the second day, windspeeds fell by 18%. Both changes were consistent with Stormfury's working hypothesis. Indeed, the results were so encouraging that "a greatly expanded research program was planned." Among other conclusions was the need for frequent seeding at close to hourly intervals.

The 1970

1970 Atlantic hurricane season

The 1970 Atlantic hurricane season officially began on June 1, 1970, and lasted until November 30, 1970. These dates conventionally delimit the period of each year when most tropical cyclones form in the Atlantic basin...

and 1971 seasons

1971 Atlantic hurricane season

The 1971 Atlantic hurricane season was fairly active with several notable storms. Hurricane Edith, the strongest of the season, was a Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, the highest category on the scale. It struck Nicaragua at peak intensity, killing dozens, and later hit southern Louisiana...

provided no suitable seeding candidates. Despite this, flights were conducted into Hurricane Ginger

Hurricane Ginger

Hurricane Ginger was the second-longest lasting Atlantic hurricane on record. The eighth tropical cyclone and fifth hurricane of the 1971 Atlantic hurricane season, Ginger spent 27.25 days as a tropical cyclone, lasting from September 6 to October 3...

. Ginger was not a suitable storm for seeding, due to its diffuse, indistinct nature. The seeding had no effect. Ginger was the last seeding done by Project Stormfury.

After the seedings

Atlantic hurricanes meeting all of the criteria were extremely rare, which made duplication of the "success" reached with Hurricane Debbie extremely difficult. Meanwhile, developments outside of meteorology hindered the cause of hurricane modification.

In the early 1970s, the Navy withdrew from the project. Stormfury began to refocus its efforts on understanding, rather than modifying, tropical cyclones. At the same time, the Project's aircraft were nearing the end of their operational lifetimes. At the cost of $30 million (year unknown) two Lockheed P-3's were acquired. Due to the rarity of Atlantic hurricanes meeting the safety requirements, plans were made to move Stormfury to the Pacific and experiment on the large number of typhoons there. This action required many of the same safety requirements as in the Atlantic, but had the advantage of a much higher number of potential subjects.

The plan was to begin again in 1976, and seed typhoons by flying out of Guam

Guam

Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...

. However, political issues blocked the plan. The People's Republic of China

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

announced that it would not be happy if a seeded typhoon changed course and made landfall on its shores, while Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

declared itself willing to put up with difficulties caused by typhoons because that country got more than half of its rainfall from tropical cyclones.

Similar plans to operate Stormfury in the eastern north Pacific or in the Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n region also collapsed.

Failure of the working hypothesis

Multiple eyewalls had been detected in very strong hurricanes before, including Typhoon Sarah

1958 Pacific typhoon season

The scope of this article is limited to the Pacific Ocean, north of the equator and west of the international date line. Storms that form east of the date line and north of the equator are called hurricanes; see 1958 Pacific hurricane season...

and Hurricane Donna

Hurricane Donna

Hurricane Donna in the 1960 Atlantic hurricane season was a Cape Verde-type hurricane which moved across the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispanola, Cuba, The Bahamas, and every state on the East Coast of the United States...

, although the double eyes were usually seen in very intense systems. Double eyewalls were also seen post-seeding in some of the seeded storms. At the time however, the only known times that rapid changes in eyewall diameter, other than during presumably successful seedings, was during rapid changes in intensity. It remained controversial whether the seedings caused the secondary eyewalls or whether it was just a natural cycle. Basically, if eyewall changes similar to those observed in seeded hurricanes were rare in unseeded tropical cyclones, it would provide powerful evidence that Project Stormfury was successful. Inversely, if such changes were common in unseeded systems, it would throw doubt on the very hypothesis and assumptions driving Project Stormfury.

Data and observations began to accumulate that debunked Stormfury's working hypothesis. Beginning with Hurricanes Anita

Hurricane Anita

Hurricane Anita was a powerful Atlantic hurricane during an otherwise quiet 1977 Atlantic hurricane season. The first tropical cyclone of the season, Anita developed from a tropical wave on August 29 in the north-central Gulf of Mexico. It tracked westward into an area with conditions favorable for...

and David

Hurricane David

Hurricane David was the fourth named tropical cyclone, second hurricane, and first major hurricane of the 1979 Atlantic hurricane season. A Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, David was among the deadliest hurricanes in the latter half of the 20th century, killing...

, flights by Hurricane Hunter aircraft encountered events similar to what happened in "successfully" seeded storms. Anita itself had a weak example of a concentric eyewall cycle, and David a more dramatic one. In August 1980, Hurricane Allen passed through the Atlantic, Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

, and Gulf of Mexico

Gulf of Mexico

The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...

. It also underwent changes in the diameter of its eye and developed multiple eyewalls. All this was consistent with the behavior that would have been expected of Allen had it been seeded. Thus, what Stormfury was accomplishing by seeding was also happening on its own.

Other observations in Hurricanes Anita, David, Frederic

Hurricane Frederic

Hurricane Frederic was the sixth tropical cyclone, third hurricane and second major hurricane of the 1979 Atlantic hurricane season. Frederic was the costliest hurricane to ever hit the U.S. Gulf Coast at that particular time...

, and Allen also discovered that tropical cyclones have very little supercooled water and a great deal of ice crystals. The reason that tropical cyclones have little supercooled water is that the updrafts within such a system are too weak to prevent water from either falling as rain or freezing. As cloud seeding needed supercooled water to function, the lack of supercooled water meant that seeding would have no effect.

Those observations called the basis for Project Stormfury into question. In the middle of 1983, Stormfury was finally canceled after the hypothesis guiding its efforts was debunked.

Legacy

In the sense of weakening hurricanes to reduce their destructiveness, Project Stormfury was a complete failure because it did not distinguish between natural phenomena in tropical cyclones and the impact of human intervention. Millions of dollars had been spent trying to do the impossible. In the end, "[Project] STORMFURY had two fatal flaws: it was neither microphysically nor statistically feasible."

In addition, Stormfury had been a primary generator of funding for the Hurricane Research Division

Hurricane Research Division

The Hurricane Research Division is a section of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, Florida, and is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's focus for tropical cyclone research...

. While the project was operational, the HRD's budget had been around $4 million (1975 USD

United States dollar

The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

; $16 million 2008 USD), with a staff of approximately 100 people. Today, the HRD employs 30 people and has a budget of roughly $2.6 million each year.

However, Project Stormfury had positive results as well. Knowledge gained during flights proved invaluable in debunking its hypotheses. Other science resulted in a greater understanding of tropical cyclones. In addition, the Lockheed P-3's were perfectly suitable for gathering data on tropical cyclones, allowing improved forecasting of these monstrous storms. Those planes are still used by the NOAA today.

Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

n president Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...

has alleged that Project Stormfury was an attempt to weaponize hurricanes.

External links

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