Do you want to see what happens if some nearby point of interest is nuked. Go here Ground Zero II
First put in the zip code or name and hit search. Than select you weapon - all the way up to asteroid, although the very common B61 (USA) is dead in the middle of the slide bar. Than hit the Nuke It button.
The fallout can be adjusted to the wind by clicking carefully on the compass rose points.
One disconcerting item for those who live near the major military bases - they are very large. Which means that if the somebody with sufficient bombs wanted to knock them out, they would almost be forced to use multiple warheads. So those of us within a possible upwind pattern could see a lot of glowing dust coming our way. Of course if you are stationed at one of those bases, disconcerting probably is not a strong enough word.
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| My nearest (somewhat) downwind military base: Fort Bragg, NC
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When you turn to the fallout gauge, the damage starts spreading. You have to pull back and slide to the northeast to see the results. In this case the fallout with a constant gentle breeze is almost at the southern bedroom communities of Raleigh, our state capital in 6 hours.
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| Same ordinance, this time showing fallout. |
Raleigh is not perfectly downwind from Fort Bragg. But it is almost perfectly downwind from the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant in New Hill, NC. So it has a more than one way to find itself glowing.
3 comments:
I question the accuracy of the maps and the competency of those who wrote the program. I checked the expected fallout patters for a couple of sites. The patterns indicated a fallout disbursement from east to west for those sites. That is the least likely wind pattern in the areas that I checked. In fact the most common wind patterns are about 135-160 degrees off from the map's direction of disbursement. So, are we supposed to believe that fallout travels against the prevailing winds?
I was so glad the power company lost the bid for more reactors near my property. I am upwind but if it melted down it would effect me.
Ragnar: You have to set the point on the compass rose for the direcetion you want the wind to be blowing. Why they did East to West as the default, I don't know, but you are supposed to reset it yourself.
In North Carolina, because of the mouuntains, the weather tends to come from the Southwest or or West Southwest.
Pioneer: Yes a very mixed blessing. I am somewhat distantly upwind of one. But not that distant. As Niven & Pournelle noted in Lucifers Hammer, they could be the last bastion of civilization. But I am guessing that most of them would eventually become a toxic nightmare. Of course if it got bad enough, worryin about dying of cancer in 10 years would be a luxery.
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