![]() ![]() Within tens of minutes of the detonation, fires from near and far would join to form a single, gigantic fire. These fires would force gigantic masses of heated air to rise, drawing cooler air from surrounding areas toward the center of the fire zone from all directions.Īs the massive winds drove flames into areas where fires had not yet fully developed,the fires set by the detonation would begin to merge. Within seconds after the detonation, fires set within a few miles of the fireball would burn violently. On a clear day with average weather conditions, the enormous heat and light from the fireball would almost instantly ignite fires over a total area of about 100 square miles. It would have cooled from its initial temperature of many millions of degrees to about 16,000 degrees Fahrenheit, roughly 4,000 degrees hotter than the surface of the sun. It would act like a fast-moving piston on the surrounding air, compressing it at the edge of the fireball and creating a shockwave of vast size and power.Īfter one second, the fireball would be roughly a mile in diameter. Within a few tenths of millionths of a second after detonation, the center of the warhead would reach a temperature of roughly 200 million degrees Fahrenheit (about 100 million degrees Celsius), or about four to five times the temperature at the center of the sun.Ī ball of superheated air would form, initiallly expanding outward at millions of miles per hour. The warhead would probably be detonated slightly more than a mile above the city, to maximize the damage created by its blast wave. What follows is a description of the consequences of the detonation of a single such warhead over midtown Manhattan, in the heart of New York City. Of this total, about 700 warheads are rated at 800 kilotons that is, each has the explosive power of 800,000 tons of TNT. Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles are believed to carry a total of approximately 1,000 strategic nuclear warheads that can hit the US less than 30 minutes after being launched.
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