There were some experiments done in the 1950s and maybe early 1960s to see if one could alter a hurricane (e.g., reduce its intensity, etc.).
Experiments had to be done way out at sea in case made things worse so would not be endangering land and then ended up stopping effort as hurricanes were not well enough understood to know if what was changing was a normal fluctuation or an induced change. We now have pretty detailed hurricane models that could try experiments on, though models are much better at track than at intensity—which changes in ways not yet understood. What Kerry Emanuel wanted to see if he could explore was whether one might cause a small change in the weather somewhere and then have confidence that this would develop into or alter a weather front to be able to push a hurricane away from some major city—all quite theoretical at moment, and not at all clear it would work. Also, intent was mainly to use weather fronts to protect US mainland—not at all clear it would even be conceivable to try to change a front to attract a storm on land, as would like to do for present tropical cyclone.
The problem we seem to have now might be resulting from how Pacific
Ocean temperatures are aligned, deflecting the jet stream in such a way that the air getting to the Atlanta region is dry continental air—likely created when Pacific moisture was forced out as air got lofted over the Rockies, Sierras, or Cascades, etc. So, really hard to get changes—and anomalies tend to persist for months until other forcings (like Sun movement as part of seasonal cycle) cause things to switch.
