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tonyPick let us know about:

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.

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