In October 2024, Hurricane Helene had just wreaked havoc on the US Southeast. Georgia’s Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene located an abstract entity to blame: “Yes, they can manipulate the weather,” she tweeted on X. “It’s absurd for anyone to deny it can be accomplished.”
No one clarified who “they” referred to, but perhaps it was preferable to leave it ambiguous.
She was echoing a conspiracy theory that has become quite well-known and widely accepted: that unseen entities are employing mysterious technology to manipulate weather and cause chaos among their alleged foes. This assertion, inherently ludicrous from a scientific perspective, has gained traction and frequency in recent years. It reappears repeatedly when severe weather events occur: in Dubai in April 2024, in Australia in July 2022, in the US following California’s floods and hurricanes like Helene and Milton. In the UK, conspiracy advocates asserted that the government manipulated the weather to ensure sunny and dry conditions during the initial COVID lockdown in March 2020. Most recently, the theories resurfaced amid devastating floods in central Texas last July. The notion has even driven some anti-government extremists to threaten and attempt to dismantle weather radar towers.
This article is part of MIT Technology Review’s series “The New Conspiracy Age,” exploring how the current surge in conspiracy theories is influencing science and technology.
However, the fact is: While Greene and her followers may be mistaken, this conspiracy theory—like numerous others—contains a grain of much more modest truth obscured by the exaggerated assertions.
It’s true that there is currently no way for humans to control the weather. We are unable to instigate significant floods or redirect hurricanes or other intense storm systems, simply because the energy involved is overwhelmingly vast for humans to influence significantly.
Nonetheless, there are methods available for us to modify weather patterns. The crucial distinction lies in the scope of what is achievable.
The most prevalent practice of weather modification is known as cloud seeding, which involves injecting small quantities of salts or other substances into clouds with the aim of increasing precipitation levels. This is usually applied in arid regions that do not receive regular rainfall. Research indicates that it can indeed be effective, but advances in technology suggest that its effects are limited—potentially boosting moisture levels by about 5% to 10% from otherwise resistant clouds.
The mere fact that humans can influence the weather at all provides conspiracy theorists with a foothold in reality. Along with this, a patchy history of actual initiatives by governments and military forces to control substantial storms, as well as other emerging but not yet widely implemented technologies aimed at combating climate change… helps clarify where the confusion arises.
Therefore, while broader assertions of weather control are ultimately absurd from a scientific viewpoint, they can’t be entirely disregarded as nonsensical.
This has contributed to the conspiracy theories swirling around the recent Texas floods being particularly vocal and influential. Just a few days earlier, 100 miles from the flood’s center, in a town named Runge, the cloud-seeding company Rainmaker had flown a small plane and released about 70 grams of silver iodide into a few clouds; a light drizzle of less than half a centimeter of rain ensued. However, upon predicting a storm front, the company halted its operation; there was no requirement to seed when rain was already anticipated.
“We executed an operation on July 2, entirely within our regulatory bounds,” Augustus Doricko, founder and CEO of Rainmaker, recently said. Nevertheless, when nearly 20 inches of rain fell shortly thereafter not far away, resulting in over 100 fatalities, the conspiracy theory machine sprang into action.
As Doricko reported to the Washington Post following the tragedy, he and his company faced “endless chaos” on social media; eventually, someone even posted photographs from outside Rainmaker’s office paired with its address. Doricko noted that several factors contributed to this backlash, including a lack of understanding regarding cloud seeding specifics and what he labeled “deliberately provocative messaging from politicians.” Indeed, narratives surrounding Rainmaker and cloud seeding spread online, mainly through prominent figures such as Greene and former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn.
Regrettably, all of this coincides with the warming climate creating conditions for heavier rainfall and subsequent floods. “These occurrences will become more frequent,” says Emily Yeh, a University of Colorado geography professor who has analyzed responses to weather modification globally. “There exists a large, outspoken segment of the population willing to believe anything but climate change as the explanation for Texas floods, or hurricanes.”
Increasing extremes, heightened weather modification activities, advancing technology, and sometimes dubious practices create a perfect environment for a previously niche conspiracy theory to appeal to anyone seeking simple answers to increasingly calamitous situations.
Here, we clarify what is feasible and what is not—and address some of the more vibrant reasons why individuals may accept ideas that venture far beyond the facts.
What we can do with the weather—and who is doing it
The fundamental principles of cloud seeding have existed for about 80 years, and governmental interest in the subject dates back even earlier.
The principal method involves using aircraft, drones, or ground apparatus to inject tiny particles, typically silver iodide, into existing clouds. These particles act as nuclei for moisture to accumulate, forming ice crystals heavy enough to descend from the cloud as either snow or rain.
“Weather modification is an established field; significant interest began in the 1940s,” asserts David Delene, a research professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of North Dakota and a cloud seeding specialist. In a US Senate report from 1952, which sought to form a committee to examine weather modification, authors stated that a slight increase in rainfall could “generate electric power worth hundreds of thousands of dollars” and “greatly enhance crop yields.” They also noted potential applications like “reducing soil erosion,” “dispersing hurricanes,” and even “creating openings in clouds to permit aircraft operations.”
However, as Delene adds, “that excitement… was not realized.”
During the 1980s, extensive studies, often funded or conducted by Washington, yielded a much greater understanding of atmospheric science and cloud physics, although it proved exceedingly challenging to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technology itself. In essence, scientists grasped the underlying principles of cloud seeding and understood theoretically that it should function, but it was difficult to ascertain the actual extent of its impact on precipitation.
Considerable variability exists between different clouds, storm systems, and geographical features; for decades, the tools available to researchers did not provide sufficient clarity to draw definitive conclusions about the amount of extra moisture produced, if any, from any particular operation. By the 1990s, interest in the practice had significantly waned.
Nonetheless, in recent years, the initial excitement has resurfaced.
Cloud seeding can enhance precipitation levels
Although the essential technology has remained largely unchanged, numerous projects initiated in the US and internationally commencing in the 2000s have integrated statistical modeling with updated aircraft measurements, ground-based radar, and other improvements to deliver clearer insights into what can be achieved through cloud seeding.
“I think we have indisputably established that we can indeed modify the cloud,” states Jeff French, an associate professor and head of the University of Wyoming’s Department of Atmospheric Science, who has dedicated years to this subject. While scientists widely agree that the practice can influence precipitation, they also generally recognize that its effects likely have some modest upper boundaries—nowhere near large-scale surges of water.
“There is absolutely no proof that cloud seeding can alter a cloud to the extent necessary for a flood,” French states. Flooding necessitates a few factors, he adds—namely, a system with abundant moisture that remains concentrated in a specific area for an extended duration. “All these variables to which cloud seeding has no effect,” he notes.
The technology simply functions on an entirely different scale. “Cloud seeding primarily aims to optimize an inefficient system slightly,” French elaborates.
As Delene explains: “Initially, [researchers] assumed that we could achieve, you know, increases of 50%, 100% in precipitation,” but “I believe if you conduct a well-executed program, you will not exceed a 10% increase.”
When asked about a possible theoretical limit, French was cautious—“I’m not sure I want to overstate”—but agreed that “perhaps around 10%” seems like a reasonable estimate.
Another cloud seeding authority, Katja Friedrich from the University of Colorado–Boulder, notes that any more substantial potential would have become evident by now: We wouldn’t have “spent the last 100 years debating—within the scientific community—if cloud seeding works,” she commented in an email. “It would have been straightforward to distinguish the signal (from cloud seeding) from the noise (natural precipitation).”
It can also (potentially) reduce precipitation
At times, cloud seeding is employed not to increase rainfall and snowfall but rather to mitigate its severity—or, more specifically, to adjust the size of individual raindrops or hailstones.
A notable case has been in regions of Canada, where hailstorms can be extremely damaging; a 2024 incident in Calgary, for instance, was recorded as the country’s second-most expensive disaster ever, costing over $2 billion in damages.
Insurance firms in Alberta have collaborated for nearly three decades on a cloud seeding initiative aimed at alleviating some of that damage. In these instances, silver iodide or similar particles are intended to effectively compete with other “embryos” within the cloud, increasing the overall count of hailstones and hence reducing the average size of each individual stone.
Smaller hailstones result in lesser damage upon impact. The insurance companies—who continue to fund the program—claim that losses have been reduced by 50% since its inception, although scientists are somewhat less convinced about its overall efficacy. A 2023 study published in Atmospheric Research reviewed a decade of cloud seeding efforts in the province and found that while the practice seemed to lessen the potential for damage in around 60% of seeded storms, in others it had no effect or was even linked to increased hail (though the authors noted that this might have resulted from natural variation).
Comparable techniques are also occasionally used to refine daily forecasts. During the 2008 Olympics, for instance, China executed a kind of cloud seeding intended to diminish rainfall. As MIT Technology Review reported back then, officials from the Beijing Weather Modification Office planned to utilize a coolant based on liquid nitrogen that could augment the number of water droplets in a cloud while minimizing their size; this can keep droplets suspended within the cloud a bit longer before falling out. While proving that it definitively would have rained without intervention is a challenge, the targeted opening ceremony did remain dry.
Where is this taking place?
The United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization reports that different forms of weather modification are occurring in “more than 50 countries” and that “demand for these weather modification activities is rising steadily due to the occurrence of droughts and other disasters.”
China is arguably the foremost user of cloud-seeding technology. Following the Olympic-related efforts, the country announced a vast expansion of its weather modification program in 2020, claiming it would eventually conduct operations for agricultural aid and other purposes, including hail suppression, over an expanse comparable to the sizes of India and Algeria combined. Since then, China has sporadically reported progress—including advancements in weather modification aircraft and the first usage of drones for artificial snow enhancement. Collectively, it invests billions in this practice, with greater expenditures anticipated.
In other regions, arid countries have shown interest. In 2024, Saudi Arabia announced a broadened research initiative on cloud seeding—Delene, from the University of North Dakota, was part of a team conducting experiments throughout the nation in late 2023. Its neighboring country, the United Arab Emirates, has been undertaking “rain enhancement” operations since 1990; this program has also faced backlash, particularly after more than a year’s worth of rain poured down in a single day in 2024, leading to massive flooding. (Bloomberg recently published a piece addressing ongoing concerns about the nation’s cloud seeding initiative; in response to the article, French noted in an email that the “best scientific consensus remains that cloud seeding CANNOT produce these events.” Other experts we consulted concurred.)
In the US, a 2024 Government Accountability Office report concerning cloud seeding confirmed that at least nine states have active programs. These initiatives are sometimes directly managed by the state and at other times contracted out to nonprofits like the South Texas Weather Modification Association to private enterprises, including Doricko’s Rainmaker and North Dakota–based Weather Modification. In August, Doricko revealed that Rainmaker expanded to 76 employees since its establishment in 2023. The organization currently conducts cloud seeding operations in Utah, Idaho, Oregon, California, and Texas, alongside forecasting services in New Mexico and Arizona. And in a statement that could intensify conspiracy theories, he mentioned they are also active in one Middle Eastern country; when I inquired which, he merely replied, “Can’t disclose.”
What we cannot achieve
The forms of weather modification that conspiracy theorists frequently envision—profoundly altering monsoons or hurricanes or guaranteeing skies remain clear and sunny for extended periods—have thus far been proven unachievable. However, this isn’t necessarily due to a lack of attempts.
The US government attempted to influence a hurricane in 1947 as part of a program dubbed Project Cirrus. Collaborating with GE, government scientists injected clouds with dry ice pellets, hoping the falling pellets would cause supercooled liquid within the clouds to crystallize into ice. Following this, the storm abruptly changed direction and hit the area surrounding Savannah, Georgia. This was a pivotal moment for emerging conspiracy theories, as a GE scientist involved with the government claimed he was “99% certain” the cyclone altered course due to their intervention. Other experts disagreed and demonstrated that such storm trajectories could easily occur naturally. Public outrage and threats of lawsuits ensued.
Once the uproar subsided, several US government agencies persisted—unsuccessfully—in their efforts to alter and diminish hurricanes through a prolonged cloud seeding initiative known as Project Stormfury. Concurrently, the US military entered the scene with Operation Popeye, aiming to weaponize weather in the Vietnam War—conducting cloud seeding activities over Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos during the late 1960s and early 1970s to boost monsoon rains and impede the enemy’s movement. Although it was never clear whether these endeavors were effective, the Nixon administration attempted to deny any such actions, even resorting to deception for both the public and congressional committees.
More recently and with less grim intentions, experiments with Dyn-O-Gel—a super-absorbent powder developed by a Florida company—were attempted, with plans to deploy it into storm clouds to absorb their moisture. In the early 2000s, the firm conducted tests with the substance during thunderstorms, aspiring to use it for weakening tropical cyclones. However, according to a former NOAA scientist, an estimated 38,000 tons would need to be released, entailing nearly 380 individual flights even for a modest cyclone’s eyewall to significantly influence its strength. Moreover, this would need to be repeated every hour and a half, and so on. Reality tends to hinder the most ambitious weather modification concepts.
Aside from attempts to control storms, there are other potential weather modification technologies that are either just beginning or have never gained traction. Swiss researchers have experimented with powerful lasers to induce cloud formation, while in Australia, nozzles on ships spraying moisture into the atmosphere have created artificial clouds in efforts to protect the Great Barrier Reef from the effects of climate change. In each circumstance, these initiatives remain limited, localized, and nowhere near achieving the level of control alleged by conspiracy theorists.
What is not weather modification—but is often confused with it
Compounding the confusion surrounding weather control conspiracies is the tendency to conflate cloud seeding and other promising weather modification research with concepts such as chemtrails—a full-blown conspiratorial fantasy about harmless condensation trails left by airplanes—and solar geoengineering, a theoretical measure intended to cool the Earth that has been extensively discussed and modeled but never implemented on a significant scale.
One contentious form of solar geoengineering, known as stratospheric aerosol injection, could involve high-altitude aircraft releasing tiny aerosol particles—likely sulfur dioxide—into the stratosphere to act as miniature mirrors. These particles would reflect a small amount of sunlight back into space, resulting in decreased energy reaching the Earth’s surface and contributing to global warming. To date, attempts to launch substantial experiments in this domain have been shouted down, and only minimal—though still controversial—commercial attempts have occurred.
This overlap with cloud seeding becomes clearer: materials, released into the atmosphere, aiming to alter conditions below. However, the objectives differ entirely; geoengineering seeks to impact the global average temperature rather than producing measurable effects on momentary cloudbursts or hailstorms. Some studies have indicated the practice could impact monsoon patterns, which is crucial given their role in global agriculture, but it remains a fundamentally different endeavor compared to cloud seeding.
This political dialogue surrounding supposed weather manipulation frequently mirrors this confusion. For example, Greene proposed a bill in July known as the Clear Skies Act, which would prohibit all weather modification and geoengineering attempts. (Greene’s congressional office did not reply to a request for comment.) Last year, Tennessee became the first state to pass a law banning the “intentional injection, release, or dispersion, by any means, of chemicals, chemical compounds, substances, or apparatus … into the atmosphere with the express purpose of affecting temperature, weather, or the intensity of the sunlight.” Florida followed suit, with Governor Ron DeSantis signing SB 56 into law this June with the same objective.
This year, lawmakers in over 20 other states have also suggested various bans on weather modification, often conflating it with geoengineering, despite the more widespread caution toward the latter. “It’s not a conspiracy theory,” exclaimed a Pennsylvania lawmaker who co-sponsored a similar bill when speaking to NBC News. “Just look up.”
Ironically, Yeh from the University of Colorado observes that the states implementing bans are ones where weather modification is not significantly occurring. “They can easily enforce these bans because, you know, nothing actually needs to change,” she notes. In general, neither Florida nor Tennessee—nor any other region in the Southeast—requires assistance in finding rain. Essentially, all weather modification activity in the US is concentrated in the drier territories west of the Mississippi.
Identifying a scapegoat
Doricko shared with me that following the Texas catastrophe, he has noticed a growing willingness among individuals to learn about the actual capabilities of cloud seeding and move past more malicious theories.
I inquired about some of his company’s more eye-catching branding: Until recently, visitors to the Rainmaker website were met with the tagline “Making Earth Habitable.” Could this level of excitement contribute to public misunderstanding or fear?
He acknowledged that Earth is currently habitable, remarking the slogan was a “tongue-in-cheek, deliberately provocative expression.” Nonetheless, contrasting with the academics who seem more at ease acknowledging the constraints of weather modification, he continues to emphasize its transformative potential. “Should we not increase water availability, substantial portions of the Earth will become less habitable,” he stated. “By augmenting water production through cloud seeding, we’re supporting the conservation of existing ecosystems that face collapse.”
While other experts suggested that 10% figure as a probable maximum for cloud seeding’s effectiveness, Doricko mentioned they could someday near 20%, although that might take years to accomplish. “Is it absolutely magical? Like, can I snap my fingers and turn the Sahara green? No,” he stated. “But can it contribute to a greener, lush, and abundant world? Certainly.”
It’s not difficult to understand why individuals cling to such fanciful beliefs. The shifting climate essentially presents weaponized weather, but through a broader and long-term mechanism. There is no singular malevolent agency or corporation controlling the trigger; instead, we simply have an atmosphere that can retain more moisture and release it upon unprepared communities, with many in power doing little to alleviate the consequences.
“Governments are inadequately addressing the climate crisis; they are often influenced by fossil fuel interests, driving policy, and tend to respond slowly and ineffectively to disasters,” Naomi Smith, a sociology lecturer at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, has commented via email. She has analyzed conspiracy theories and meteorological events. “Comprehending all this complexity is challenging, and theorizing conspiracies offers a means to render it comprehensible.”
“Conspiracy theories provide us with a ‘big bad’ to pinpoint responsibility, a target for our feelings of anger, despair, and grief,” she notes. “It’s far less fulfilling to vent at the weather or to engage in the sustained collective action necessary to tackle climate change.”
The ominous “they” in Greene’s claims is, in essence, a much simpler target than the genuine culprit.
Dave Levitan is an independent journalist, focused on science, politics, and policy. Find his work at davelevitan.com and subscribe to his newsletter at gravityisgone.com.
