Why Trump should not nuke a hurricane, in 4 graphics

“Why don’t we nuke them?” President Donald Trump asked during a White House briefing about hurricanes, according to an Axios report. Trump was advocating for a nuclear solution to the tropical storms that hit the southeastern US, according to Axios.

Sources who heard the president’s private remarks told Axios that Trump asked senior officials something along the lines of, “They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?”

Trump has since called the report “fake news,” but his suggestion was also recorded in a National Security Council memo.

Before the conversation ever took place, however, hurricane researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had already published an article answering Trump’s question.

The scientists describe why it would be impossible to use a bomb to disrupt a hurricane: We don’t have nuclear bombs powerful enough for the task, nor the financial resources to build enough new bombs to combat even one hurricane.

Here are four graphics that show why nuking a hurricane is not a good idea.