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Storm-battling operation to move to Melbourne

Research flight set for Tuesday; more to follow

By Wayne T. Price
FLORIDA TODAY

A company developing technology meant to take the punch out of hurricanes is moving its weather-modification testing division -- about 30 employees -- to Melbourne, and will conduct research flights from Melbourne International Airport.

Dyn-O-Mat claims a product it developed can be dropped from an aircraft into a storm cell and essentially disintegrate it. Such a process, if ever perfected, theoretically could eliminate a hurricane before it posed any danger.

Dyn-O-Mat is scheduled to make an initial research flight Tuesday from the Melbourne airport, and plans more extensive research flights in July and August, said J.D. Dutton, the company's president.

One reason Dyn-O-Mat, selected Brevard County is because of the company's alliance with Melbourne-based AeroGroup Inc. AeroGroup owns the aircraft Dyn-O-Mat uses in its research.

Dutton said his company makes a polymer that's dropped into a storm cloud. The substance absorbs the moisture and converts into a gel, which then falls into the ocean and dissipates.

"For the past three years, we've done extensive laboratory testing on the material, and for about the past year, we've been doing field testing with it," Dutton said. The latest test was last year, when Dutton said Dyn-O-Mat researchers attacked a growing thunderstorm off the coast of West Palm Beach.

"Within less than a minute, that cell was actually blipped off the radar screen," Dutton said.

Hugh Willoughby, hurricane research director at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Miami, said he's very familiar with Dyn-O-Mat and has doubts about whether the product works as the company claims. Willoughby, who has studied hurricanes for 33 years, said the type of cloud system that "blipped off the radar screen" was one that collapses very quickly on its own anyway.

"There's a tremendous amount of skepticism about weather modification," Willoughby added.