STORM2K

One of the quirks of being in a physics department is receiving long rambling emails from random strangers claiming they have found a theory of everything. This emails are of course spammed to everyone in the department and conveniently never have any evidence or math in them. One of the most memorable emails I have received was one where the guy claimed he not only disproved Einstein and quantum mechanics but had built a device that was "capable of knocking a category 4 hurricane down to a 2."

This made me wonder: do meteorologists get these sorts of crackpots spamming them messages? If so, what are the most memorable crackpots you have seen?

I've gotten a small handful, the most memorable was one who had a theory on the water cycle that water vapor was actually decomposing into H2 and O in the upper atmosphere and then explosively recombining, and if we would just listen to him it would solve all of our energy balance issues.

I've had the biggest problem in social settings were I'm plagued by the anti-climate change crowd who thinks they can go toe to toe with me after reading a few op-eds written by the energy lobbies. The most memorable there was where someone who enough to be dangerous was telling me that climate change had to only be cyclical, because the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere would only create a 0.3% increase in global heat budget, but the one degree Celsius change in X number of years was a 3% change in heat budget (1 degree on a 30 degree average global temp). I still remember his face when I pointed out that Celsius is not an absolute scale, and if you measure one degree on Kelvin it comes out to a....0.3% change.

When I worked for NOAA we'd get letters from 2 guys (pre-Internet conspiracy dopes) who kept claiming hurricane seeding was a plot of one type or another. Eventually the FBI told them to cease and desist, after they showed up at the office...

This thread has been dead for almost a year now but I just can't help but add that a few days ago I saw someone on YouTube trying to ask Leigh Orf about how to use pool misters and PVC pipe to trigger a supercell.
So in terms of “most memorable weather crackpot I have encountered" I think "pool mister supercells" blows "knocking a hurricane down two categories machine" out of the water.

Frank2 wrote:When I worked for NOAA we'd get letters from 2 guys (pre-Internet conspiracy dopes) who kept claiming hurricane seeding was a plot of one type or another. Eventually the FBI told them to cease and desist, after they showed up at the office...

Which probably was proof to them the government is "covering it up".

Bringing this thread back to life because I got the weirdest weather crackpot yet. I answer people's science questions on the website Quora. Mostly I answer questions about astrophysics (esp. black holes) because that's my field of expertise, but I occasionally answer questions about other sciences if I think I can answer them.

On one of my answers about hurricanes I got today a long rant-filled comment arguing that scientists are deluded because "water vapor does not exist".

There was the usual stuff about weather control too, but the whole "there is no such thing as water vapor" made me laugh so hard.

(Realistically though I should probably be sad)

storm_in_a_teacup wrote:Bringing this thread back to life because I got the weirdest weather crackpot yet. I answer people's science questions on the website Quora. Mostly I answer questions about astrophysics (esp. black holes) because that's my field of expertise, but I occasionally answer questions about other sciences if I think I can answer them.

On one of my answers about hurricanes I got today a long rant-filled comment arguing that scientists are deluded because "water vapor does not exist".

There was the usual stuff about weather control too, but the whole "there is no such thing as water vapor" made me laugh so hard.

(Realistically though I should probably be sad)

Or scared.

I wish water vapor did not exist, I hate humid days.

storm_in_a_teacup wrote:Bringing this thread back to life because I got the weirdest weather crackpot yet. I answer people's science questions on the website Quora. Mostly I answer questions about astrophysics (esp. black holes) because that's my field of expertise, but I occasionally answer questions about other sciences if I think I can answer them.

On one of my answers about hurricanes I got today a long rant-filled comment arguing that scientists are deluded because "water vapor does not exist".

There was the usual stuff about weather control too, but the whole "there is no such thing as water vapor" made me laugh so hard.

(Realistically though I should probably be sad)

Doesn't surprise me that this happened on Quora lol

WaveBreaking wrote:

storm_in_a_teacup wrote:Bringing this thread back to life because I got the weirdest weather crackpot yet. I answer people's science questions on the website Quora. Mostly I answer questions about astrophysics (esp. black holes) because that's my field of expertise, but I occasionally answer questions about other sciences if I think I can answer them.

On one of my answers about hurricanes I got today a long rant-filled comment arguing that scientists are deluded because "water vapor does not exist".

There was the usual stuff about weather control too, but the whole "there is no such thing as water vapor" made me laugh so hard.

(Realistically though I should probably be sad)

Doesn't surprise me that this happened on Quora lol

It has fallen so hard …It used to be so good. I was able to get complex physics questions answered by several professional physicists on the site. They all left though…the only reason I’m still there is it counts as science outreach for my CV

But yeah sadly most of the questions I get now are troll questions like “If I ate a neutron star what would happen?” and “What would happen to a spaceship if it got hit by a supernova shock wave?” [what do you think would happen lol??!]