Trump suggests nuking hurricanes to stop them from making landfall in US

United States President Donald Trump has reportedly suggested on several occasions that the country's military should drop nuclear bombs on hurricanes to disrupt them before they make landfall in the US.

"Why don't we nuke them? 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 reportedly said during a hurricane briefing at the White House, news portal Axios reported citing sources.

Sputnik reported the publication as further saying that officials present at the meeting were shocked by the idea proposed by Trump.

The US President had raised the same issue on another occasion with a senior administration official in 2017. This conversation, recorded in a US National Security Council memo, suggests that Trump had talked about the possibility of bombing hurricanes, but without using the word nuclear bombs.

Axios further quoted a senior official as saying that Trump's proposal was not a cause for alarm since the president's goal is "to keep a catastrophic hurricane from hitting the mainland", which is "not bad,"

The White House has not yet commented on the report.