If you're anything like me, this past winter was brutal on everything from your hair to your waistline to your car's engine. Most days I wanted to turn into Storm and find a way to make it 75 and sunny all the time, while never seeing another snowflake. Maybe my weather daydreams aren't so far fetched. Researchers apparently are one step ahead of me and may have found a way to effectively control the weather using some pretty rad technology.
According to Value Walk, a team of researchers at the University of Central Florida think they could possibly control weather with a high-energy laser beam. This really sounds like some comic book stuff, but apparently they can control rain in clouds, storms and lightning with the beam. There is a ton of static electricity in clouds, and in theory, they could be manipulated.
To make the super high tech laser, two beams are layered on top of each other so the central beam can hold its power for much longer. The secondary beam acts like a support so that the bottom one can focus on blasting clouds. Apparently, a single beam would fall apart rather quickly and that's no good for creating a healthy storm. Once the intensity is just right, the beam starts to collapse and create a bunch of electrons in a plasma like soup, making conditions just right for rain, thunder and lightning.
The research team also said there were other possible uses for the new technology, like long distance sensors that could be used for just about everything. I'm personally hoping they'll be used in radar detectors so I can continue my bad speeding habits. The coolest part I think about these lasers is that you could potentially diffuse big storm systems that produce terrifying tornadoes or give rain to drought addled areas.
Maybe this isn't the weather control I had once hoped for, but in the future I might be able to look forward to at least not having to be so afraid of dangerous thunderstorms. Now they only need to find a way to send snow clouds very, very far away from me. Permanently.
Check out the interesting video below from ABC News about cloud seeding, a similar technology also used to help control rainfall and storms. Could a seeded storm make its way to your neighborhood? I hope that we start putting this technology into use on a larger scale soon.
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