Why more countries are turning to weather modification

Countries across the globe are increasingly turning to a decades-old weather modification technique as part of a push to control when and where it rains.

Alongside the U.S. and China, which boasts the world’s largest weather modification program, France, Russia, India and Saudi Arabia are among a growing list of countries to have experimented with cloud seeding.

For many, the embrace of rain-making operations stems from the need to boost water supplies as global demand continues to rise amid the climate crisis.

Others have sought to use cloud seeding to disperse fog at airports, tackle air pollution, reduce hail damage or even to manipulate the weather for major events, such as the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Cloud seeding aims to improve a cloud’s ability to produce rain or snow by introducing tiny particles, usually silver iodide. The process is limited both in area and duration and, over time, is estimated to increase local precipitation by 5% to 15%.

The concept is not without controversy, however. Since first taking place in the 1940s, cloud seeding experiments have raised concern over potential environmental and ecological risks and stoked regional security tensions, with countries accusing each other of stealing rain.

Augustus Doricko, CEO of Rainmaker, a California-based cloud seeding company, said there are two dynamics at play that seem to be rekindling people’s interest in the technology — both in the U.S. and across the world.

“One is truly just circumstance, a lot of these countries and regions are suffering from more volatility in climate and precipitation patterns and their water supply, and so it’s leading them through necessity to be more creative than they were in the past,” Doricko told CNBC by telephone.

“Two, and I think this is like the real meat and potatoes of why Rainmaker got started, it’s because in the last few years there have been some fundamental breakthroughs in how to do measurements and attribution of cloud seeding effects.”

Despite an 80-year legacy, Doricko said interest in cloud seeding “really fell off” in the 1970s and 1980s because it had been difficult to accurately measure how much precipitation derived from cloud seeding deployments.

Recent technological improvements now make it possible to verify the success of these deployments in real time, Doricko said.

The company, which says it intends to arrest the aridification of the American West, has grown rapidly in recent months, from just 19 employees at the beginning of 2025 to 120 today, a trend that appears to underscore the booming interest in cloud seeding.

Yet, despite its name, Doricko said the company’s cloud seeding projects are mostly designed to make it snow.

“I misnamed the company it turns out, and ‘Snowmaker’ probably would have been more apt. It doesn’t sound as good…