 With regard to hurricanes , it was hypothesized that by seeding the area around the eyewall with silver iodide , latent heat would be released . This would promote the formation of a new eyewall . As this new eyewall was larger than the old eyewall , the winds of the tropical cyclone would be weaker due to a reduced pressure gradient . Even a small reduction in the speed of a hurricane 's winds would be beneficial : since the damage potential of a hurricane increased as the square of the wind speed , a slight lowering of wind speed would have a large reduction in destructiveness . 
