Listen to Dr. Francis W. Reichelderfer, Chief of the United States Weather Bureau, discuss the state of the art in hurricane prevention and control in this 1961 edition of "New Horizons in Science".
Of the ideas presented by Dr. Reichelderfer, the one that has been used most successfully is satellite tracking and prevention --at the time a novel idea, thanks to the new TIROS satellites, one of the earliest weather satellite programs. Perhaps luckily, neither control by chemicals nor by atomic explosions was developed much further.
Bonus: Hear reports of the devastating 1955 East Coast hurricane Connie.