There are few places in the world that we really picture snow in our minds, but most would probably think of Moscow, Russia having snow year-round. This actually isn’t true, but normally you can find a white Moscow from November to March every year. This may not be the case this year as they are planning to use the air force and chemicals to divert all snow clouds away from Moscow. It is possible to do this and this year there could be no snow falling in Moscow. It would cost about 6 million dollars to achieve this weather feat, but before you think this project is too costly, keep in mind that Moscow normally spends 12 million dollars once the snow is on the ground. They spend a lot of money plowing and removing the snow from Moscow streets, so business can continue as usual during the winter time. The proposed idea to stop it from snowing this year would actually save the city of Moscow about 6 million dollars or they would be spending 50% less on their usual winter budget for snow related issues. No snow in Moscow this year does offer a lot of benefits to the Russian citizens and you could come up with a pretty long list of why this would be a good thing for them this winter. Russian officials may want to focus on the short list of reasons why this might be a bad idea and the possible draw backs it could cause.

Going back to Hurricane Katrina in the United States; where some U.S. scientists question if Russia played a part with this devastating hurricane that rocked New Orleans and the surrounding areas a few years back. Low frequency signals have been detected coming out of Russia and how these could have played a part with Hurricane Katrina and with the California drought that struck the Western Coast of the USA before the historic hurricane. In an effort to combat these awful hurricanes that hit the Atlantic States and the states that surround the Gulf of Mexico; the United States played their own role in Mother Nature. They have focused a high pressure area off the coast of Florida that now helps to push away these hurricanes and prevent another Hurricane Katrina. Turning away these hurricanes caused a major drought in my state of Georgia and the city of Atlanta was just months away from running out of water, for a city that has over 6 million residents. Since Georgia and other southeastern states were suffering from no to little rainfall, we was forced to play Mother Nature again. This time we created more rain showers in the Southeast and this didn’t work out too well either. Our water table is very high in Georgia right now and we just came through some major floods that have never been seen in our state’s history before. These recent Georgia floods proved to be fatal for some living in Georgia and there were 17 counties that got declared federal disaster areas and it will take millions and millions of dollars to clean up from the Georgia floods.

Now I am learning that Moscow is in the early stages of planning a “no snow” winter and there could be some serious drawbacks to this idea. I can’t name them and probably the smartest people in the world could only come up with a few scenarios that would make this Russian idea a mistake. Not letting Mother Nature take her coarse has proved deadly and costly in the U.S. and Moscow is on a collision coarse to learning the side-effects the hard way. I know it may sound like a good idea now, but it’s impossible to calculate how this new winter idea could backfire. A drought in 2010 or floods could be the least of what happens; if no snow is allowed to fall in Moscow this year.

We have had front row seats to the destruction man has caused when they try to play with Mother Nature and the same could hold true for Russian officials that plan to turn off the snow faucets in Moscow this year. I would use the Russian Air Force to divert a small percentage of snow clouds this year and gradually make the move for lesser snowfall amounts falling in the Russian capital. An entire winter with no snow in Moscow is too drastic of a move and some where on Earth this idea would hurt them. Mother Nature does a pretty good job each year in the way she handles weather patterns on our planet. When we try to fix one area of the world from bad weather, we only cause more problems for some other areas. No one could have imagined the droughts in the Southeastern U.S.; when a few hurricanes were turned away. No one could have imagined the severe floods we recently seen; when we tried to make up for the lack of rainfall, from the droughts we caused in the first place. Using technology to play “weather maker” might be a real good idea someday, but until we can learn more on controlling the weather, the USA and Russia both need to let Mother Nature take her coarse. Snow does need to fall in Moscow this year and preventing this from happening could cause disasters in the spring and summer time for the people living in Moscow and other nearby regions.