REPORTS have emerged in the United States that Donald Trump has asked his national security officials to explore the concept of throwing nuclear bombs into the eyes of hurricanes at sea to stop them from coming ashore.

What?

Let me repeat that: the US President is said to have suggested “multiple times” to senior Homeland Security and national security officials in the United States that they investigate dropping nuclear bombs into hurricanes.

To try to stop them making landfall?

According to US news site Axios, during one hurricane briefing which took place at the White House, Trump said: “I got it. I got it. Why don’t we nuke them?”

Continuing to paraphrase, the source said Trump added: "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?”

He really said that?

Trump denies it and says this is “fake news!” But the reporter Jonathan Swan is adamant it is true. Saying he stands by “every word”, he added of Trump: “He said this in at least two meetings during the first year and a bit of the presidency, and one of the conversations was memorialised.”

The idea never developed?

The security official briefing the President said “Sir, we’ll look into that”, but the source said it went nowhere and never entered formal policy development.

Some of Trump’s team don’t think it’s that “out there” an idea?

A different source said Trump’s suggestion was not a cause for alarm as “his goal - to keep a catastrophic hurricane from hitting the mainland - is not bad. His objective is not bad”.

How badly affected by hurricanes is the US?

According to data from the Hurricane Research Division, part of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in America, on average, seven hurricanes hit the US every four years, while about three major hurricanes cross the American coast every five years.

The worst hurricane in American history claimed thousands of lives?

Back in 1900, the Galveston hurricane killed up to 12,000 people.

Nearly 5000 people died as a result of Hurricane Maria in 2017 and in 2005, 1,833 lost their lives when Hurricane Katrine hit Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.

The idea had been mooted before?

Yes, during the Eisenhower presidency. In 2016, National Geographic published an article, “Nuking Hurricanes: The Surprising History of a Really Bad Idea," which dated the concept to the 1950s, when a government scientist suggested it as a potential peaceful use for nuclear weapons.

In reality, “nuking” hurricanes would have a real fallout?

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in America says: "During each hurricane season, there always appear suggestions that one should simply use nuclear weapons to try and destroy the storms," but that "would not be an effective hurricane modification technique.”

The reason?

Unsurprisingly, the radioactive fallout would be carried up by the trade winds and move across the Atlantic, so “nuking” hurricanes seems an unlikely prospect for the future.