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Volkswagen is reversing course on the use of controversial weather-altering technology at a major Mexican car plant after local farmers complained that the system caused drought by preventing rainfall.

The German carmaker had installed hail cannons, which fire shockwaves into the atmosphere, at its Puebla site to prevent the formation of ice stones that had been damaging finished vehicles parked outside its facility.

But local farmers said the devices, which were set to fire automatically under certain weather conditions, caused a drought during the months that should have been Mexico’s rainy season.

Gerardo Perez, a farmers’ representative in the area, told the AFP agency that the cannons meant the “sky literally clears and it simply doesn’t rain”.

A group of local farmers claimed that 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) of crops were affected, and filed a suit claiming 70 million pesos (€3.2m) in damages from the carmaker, AFP reported.

In response, VW said it would install netting above the cars to protect them from hailstorms in the future.

[...] The carmaker invested in the hail cannon technology to prevent damage to its vehicles earlier this year.

[...] Hail storms present significant problems for car manufacturers, which often have large numbers of finished vehicles parked outside at distribution centres or plants.

Also at UPI, C|Net, MSN, and Business Insider:

Instead of using smoke or projectiles, modern hail cannons — like those used at the Puebla Volkswagen plant — rely on loud shockwaves, fired repeatedly every few seconds as a storm approaches.

"This shockwave, clearly audible as a large whistling sound, then travels at the speed of sound into & through the cloud formations above, disrupting the growth phase of the hailstones," the manufacturer wrote.

Winemakers and auto manufacturers make use of the cannons to try to protect their valuable goods. In 2007, a California NPR station reported that winemakers were using the cannons to try to prevent hail formation.

[...] But still, no one knows if the cannons actually work.

"Scientists say there is no way to prove if these cannons really work, but farmers say it is cheaper to try the cannons than to buy hail insurance," reported NPR, in that story.

"There's no evidence that they actually do anything," meteorologist Harold Brooks of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's Severe Storms Laboratory told Automotive News in 2005. "It may be possible. But if they really do something, they're doing it through some unknown science that we don't know about."

Skeptics have also pointed out that like hail cannons, thunder produces loud shockwaves — but hail shows up anyway.

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