Could a Team of Trained Pegasus Dissipate a Storm? · 11:56pm Mar 11th, 2016
Regarding a side project of mine and a group of people, the theory was raised about whether or not a well trained Pegasus team could be able to dissipate a large scale storm. I wanted to test the veracity of this idea, so I watched Hurricane Fluttershy again in an effort to see if I could make sense of the weather, or it's just a bunch of nonsense the writers threw together for the episode.
Well, believe it or not, while I did have to make a small amount of assumptions, the math holds up. I am as surprised as you are. I'll do my best to present the information in the simplest and most efficient way, but if you so desire, I'll share the exact calculations I used to arrive at these conclusions. So let's begin, shall we?
Step One: Pegasus Strenght
The first thing to do is determine how strong Pegasus ponies are in relation to weather phenomena. Thankfully, Hurricane Fluttershy gives us a clear cut explanation.
To refresh your memory, the episode deals with the Pegasus of Ponyville having to create a tornado to send water from their reservoir to Cloudsdale so they can create clouds for all of Equestria. The episode also provides us with enough information to determine how this works.
We are told that in order to lift the water, the tornado created must have a minimum of 800 wing power. Let's fast forward until the end of the episode, where eight Pegasus have fallen victim to the feather-flu, leaving them with less than enough wingpower to reach the desired eight hundred.
Based on this, I calculated that there must have been a total of 31 Pegasus flying in the tornado with an absolute top force of 25.6 wingpower (From now on referred as WnPw) in average at the peak of the tornado.
That means that an average Pegasus with a few weeks of training can reach an average top force of 25.6 WnPW
Step Two: Strenght of the Weather
Now that we've determined the top speed an average Pegasus after intense training can reach at their peak, we must determine how strong the tornado they formed was.
Here I posit that what the Pegasus of Ponyville formed wasn't a simple tornado, but rather a type of waterspout. Here's my basis: When tornadoes form over water and present a column of water in their vortex, they're called waterspouts. Waterspouts are weaker than tornadoes, but still strong enough to mantain a constant flow of water, as seen in the episode.
Now, you may be wondering why it had to be a waterspout and not a normal tornado. Here's why:
When the group of Pegasus sans Fluttershy peak at 795 WnPW, they are barely managing to make the water lift before breaking apart, so it couldn't have been a stronger tornado. So I will be generous and I say that 800 WnPW is the bare minimum needed to form a waterspout, wich has top speeds of approximatedly 30 m/s (67mph for you imperialists)
Now, thanks to this first analysis and calculation, we can safely say that:
800 WnPw = 30 m/s
Having established this, it would make sense to think that the amount of force needed to form and mantain a tornado (or waterspout) should be the same amount of force needed to make it dissipate. Now, let's apply this to the windspeed of hurricanes, as dictated by the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale:
Category 1 Hurricane -> Top Speed of 42 m/s -> 1120 WnPw needed.
Category 2 Hurricane -> Top Speed of 49 m/s -> 1307 WnPw needed.
Category 3 Hurricane -> Top Speed of 58 m/s -> 1547 WnPw needed.
Category 4 Hurricane -> Top Speed of 70 m/s -> 1867 WnPw needed.
Category 5 Hurricane -> Postulated Speed of 90 m/s* -> 2400 WnPw needed.
I should note that Category 5 Hurricanes are categorised as any hurricane with windspeeds above 70 m/s. For the sake of having a numeric value assigned to it, I gave it the same windspeeds as the strongest windspeeds for an F4 tornado.
Now that we have the total wing power needed to dispell each tornado, we only have to make a quick division to find out how many pegasus would be needed to dissipate a hurricane, if we take the absolute peak reached by the Pegasus of Ponyville, meaning 25.6 WnPw, we get these results:
Category 1 Hurricane -> 1120 WnPw needed -> @25.6 WnPw -> 44 Pegasus.
Category 2 Hurricane -> 1307 WnPw needed -> @25.6 WnPw -> 51 Pegasus.
Category 3 Hurricane -> 1547 WnPw needed -> @25.6 WnPw -> 61 Pegasus.
Category 4 Hurricane -> 1867 WnPw needed -> @25.6 WnPw -> 73 Pegasus.
Category 5 Hurricane -> 2400 WnPw needed -> @25.6 WnPw -> 94 Pegasus.
We finally reach a concrete number. However there is one final issue we must take into account.
Step Three: Other Factors
Let's take another look at the waterspout created in Hurricane Fluttershy.
First of all, take a look at where the waterspout was formed:
We can see that they are away from Ponyville, and the reservoir is surrounded by hills, meaning that not only are they away from any debris, but they are somewhat isolated from wind currents. Also notice the clear skies. These are ideal conditions for weather manipulation, which is probably why that day and place were chosen.
Imagine now the conditions of a hurricane. Flying debris, heavy rain, falling temperatures. All are factors that must be taken into account.
But all these are external factors, we are yet to analyse the most important one:
The Pegasus are showing clear signs of strain. And that's only at 500 WnPw, meaning that each of them is going at an average speed of 12.82 WnPw, and they're yelling to be heard.
Now that we have all this data, let's make some conclusions.
Step Four: Conclusions
What can we gather from Hurricane Fluttershy?
That a group of 31 trained Pegasus, flying with a force of 12.82 WnPw, under ideal conditions, were able to reach a total of 500 WnPw. Which means that when they all managed to reach 795 WnPw before Fluttershy's intervention, they really were giving it their all.
Following this data, we can conclude that, under ideal conditions, a group of 61 highly-trained Pegasus, specialised in weather, flying with a wing-breaking force of 25.6 WnPw would barely be able to disippate a Category 3 Hurricane.
However. If we take in consideration all the other factors, that number would have to increase.
So, let's make one final calculation. And this time, let's give our weather team a more realistic flying speed, considering they would have to pace themselves to properly to not strain their bodies and pass out in exhaustion. Let's say they fly with 16.5 WnPw, the speed Rainbow Dash reached before training. And let's add a contingency amount of Pegasus (in this case 10% more). And I'll keep it simple this time.
Category 1 Hurricane -> 75 Pegasus.
Category 2 Hurricane -> 87 Pegasus.
Category 3 Hurricane -> 103 Pegasus.
Category 4 Hurricane -> 125 Pegasus.
Category 5 Hurricane -> 160 Pegasus.
I'll stop here and for a reason. As you can see, the more factors you take into account, the bigger the numbers get. And this presents another problem, a problem even bigger than flying debris, rain, and cold temperature.
As I said earlier, when the Pegasus are forming the waterspout and are about to reach 800 WnPw, they have to yell to hear each other. And those are winds with an absolute top speed of 30 m/s. As the speed doubles and even triples for hurricanes of higher categories, it would become much more difficult if not outright impossible for the Pegasus to comunicate with each other.
And when you're trying to fly in the middle of a hurricane--which can reach dimentions that rival entire cities--, you need to be able to communicate the smallest change in air currents or it could spell doom for your partners.
Therefore, let's answer the question of whether or not would a team of Pegasus be able to dissipate a large hurricane.
The answer is a clear no.
Sure, from a purely theoretical point of view, a group of highly specialised and trained weather ponies could generate enough force to dissipate a storm, but that would be a mere mathematical analysis. Once you take all other factors into account (the pegasus would have to spread over all the area of a hurricane, severely impeding comunication and visibility, which would lead to an even bigger disaster, and in the worst case scenario, even a few casualties), it becomes obvious that this isn't a feasible option.
So, yeah. That happened.
This is basically the same question as the What If about whether you could stop a train by shooting at it.
3803686
What are you using as ammunition?
Actually Dash's stretch goal was to get his pegasus squadron up to 10 wingpower each. That was the goal -- not everypony made it. Dash was 16 and change and a couple were in the 11 range.
This of course reinforces your main point that it would take a truckload of pegasi to take out a major hurricane, commander.
3803906
I know. The basis for that calculation was to assume a significant improvement over the whole week of intense training Rainbow Dash subjected them to, and flying to the point of physical straining.
As I said, I was being generous in several aspects just for the sake of finding out if it was theoretically possible for winged cartoon horses to dissipate a real life storm.
First off, greetings Jurist. Second, apologies for necromancy if this reply is unwelcome after a couple years of dormancy.
This was a pretty interesting read. I have to say I disagree with your conclusion though. Even without going into later episodes and sticking to Hurricane Fluttershy (Season 2), Winter Wrap Up (Season 1), and Sonic Rainboom (Season 1), it is well-established that the pegasi do in fact control and manage the weather. Hurricane Fluttershy and Sonic Rainboom established that Cloudsdale's weather factory manages the weather for all of Equestria, providing training, clouds, rainbows, and so on that are distributed and managed by local teams. The purpose of the waterspout in Hurricane Fluttershy was to provide water for Cloudsdale to manufacture clouds, after all.
That speaks of a level of logistics and industry well above what we saw in Hurricane Fluttershy. Ponyville, especially in early seasons, is depicted as a small, backwoods sort of place. The pegasi there are hardly the cream of the crop, Rainbow Dash is an extreme outlier (though that depiction does drop in later seasons as we see other Ponyville pegasi join the Wonderbolts). I think the averages you discovered for Ponyville could easily be a few points higher for larger populated areas like Canterlot of Manehattan, and would be significantly higher for Cloudsdale (and perhaps Los Pegasus which seems cloudy and perhaps another high pegasus population area).
More importantly than raw WnPw though, as you pointed out, are other factors. The basic strategy for the waterspout was to fly around in tight circles simply to generate windspeed. Normally tornados and waterspouts form their spiral due to hot and cold fronts meeting and the hot and cold air attempting to rise/sink through each other rather than calmly dissipate temperatures between them. Like water going down a drain, this easily forms into twisting motions. The waterspouts created during Hurricane Fluttershy or mentioned as being normal appear to be attempting this process without the normal hot/cold fronts.
This leads to the next factor: a naturally occurring storm would have those fronts. Hurricanes are on a large scale, but still the result of hot and cold air churning around each other. If pegasi wanted to dissipate a storm, it would likely be one such naturally occurring one, rather than one they manufactured. Coastal areas like Manehattan and Los Pegasus would have need of such services possibly regularly. Air cooled over the oceans meeting warmed air over land is a breeding ground for storms, after all.
The strategies for tackling large weather simply to disrupt it would not need tight, coordinated flying formations like forcing a tornado/waterspout to form in the uniform-temperature air. What you'd likely see is something more akin to a cavalry charge, as a wall of pegasi fly in a straight line into a hurricane (perhaps over the ocean before it has had a chance to come inland to pick up strength). The goal is to disrupt the energy of the storm, the way mountains do in real life. As a resident of California, I'm well-familiar with how our Coastal Mountain Range saps energy out of storms from the Pacific, leaving us with mild weather in the Valley. Storms attempting to go further inland are generally destroyed outright by the Sierra Nevadas, causing them to dump all their water on our side of the mountains, leaving Nevada arid.
Such tactics would be taught and well-understood by pegasi on the coastal regions in need of hurricane-busting. The duties of any particular pegasus involved would be much simpler: fly in a straight line really fast and bring a bunch of wind against the turn of the hurricane. Generally wedge the whole thing up so it loses power.
It might take hundreds of pegasi to tackle a really big storm still, but larger cities like Manehattan and Los Pegasus likely have those numbers. Even if all they accomplish is weakening a storm, that's probably still valuable. They probably do incorporate natural storms into their schedule, and weaken them to safer levels. You don't necessarily need to produce clear blue skies, after all.