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There's a fascinating article on Atlas Obscura which looks at the work of weather modification companies:
The article looks at the work of the pilots involved, the methods they use, and the evidence for the effectiveness of the approach.
The strange tropical ocean-colored clouds indicate light reflecting off bits of ice in the storm's core. This means hail, a potential death sentence for farmers like Mrnak, whose 6,000 acres of wheat, barley, corn and sunflower lie striped across picturesque rolling plains in the state's southwestern corner, near a region of rugged hills called the Badlands. "We've had hailstorms here where there is nothing left," says Mrnak. "It will take the crop completely down—down to the ground." In mere minutes, millions of dollars of plant material, including the delicate kernels, which aid in reproduction, can be smashed to bits. It's a crop's version of death by stoning.
The job of pilots like Royal is to fly directly at monstrous thunderstorms—something most pilots diligently avoid, given that the turbulent airflow in these storms occasionally brings down commercial jetliners—and discharge chemicals into a particular part of the cloud, a technique called "cloud seeding" intended to suppress the storm's ability to produce hail.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @09:14PM
I think I saw something on Discovery at some point about smallish rockets being used to seed clouds. maybe I'm remembering wrong, but wouldn't that be an option, and wouldn't it be safer?
Also: is there any practical reason (i.e. payload weight) why drones aren't being used for this? I guess communication issues might develop around thunderstorms, but I'm not sure how bad they would be.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Saturday November 21 2015, @12:42AM
Rockets are propelled by stuff which goes boom, which could be used by Dakota terrorists. Only stuff that goes boom inside barrels is allowed.
Beyond the fact that commercial drones don't have the payload capacity required to seed a mountain-sized cloud system, you also need one heck of an engine and frame to survive the massive updrafts inside the Cumuli-Nimbus (reasonable pilots don't want to be anywhere near). I guess pieces of shattered drones are less damaging than hail, but you can't sue hail.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday November 21 2015, @02:32AM
I saw that TV program! But as I remember, it was propane bombs being tossed from a helicopter, until it was eaten by a very large shark. If they think hail is bad, wait until a sharknado hits!