Essential Information
- It has long been known that dispersing silver iodide in clouds artificially triggers rain.
- A non-polluting but complex, imprecise, and very costly process.
- An American start-up has recently developed a much simpler process.
Measuring the severity of the drought in Utah is as simple as listening to their Republican governor appeal to the heavens. “Please, pray with me for more rain,” Spencer Cox requests in a video posted on social media. Or simply taking a tour of the ski slopes that are supposed to host the Winter Olympics in 8 years. “These mountains and plains should be covered with a thick layer of snow, but as you can see, it’s completely dry,” Augustus Doricko shows in the above report. To address this, 25-year-old engineer developed a new kind of rain dance.
Cloud Seeding
It involves drones, state-of-the-art radars, and two young French engineers. “The aim is simply to target the clouds above us, send the drone, and then carry out what is called cloud seeding,” explained one of them, Lucas Coupu-Moison, to TF1. “Seeding a cloud” is to force it to release the water it holds. For this, there is no need for magical incantations, just to climb sufficiently high in the sky to spread a handful of powder. “We have 150 grams of silver iodide, and with that, we will be able to produce 6 million liters of water through rain or snow. It’s practically insoluble later in the water,” added the other French engineer, Louis Mounier.
The technique has been known since the mid-20th century. So far, it was planes flying into the clouds. But these releases were too expensive and too imprecise to provide a viable solution to drought. Three years ago, the Californian start-up Rainmaker brought back cloud seeding. Using data analyzed by artificial intelligence and notably without the need to take off any planes. “It’s almost real-time. Once the drone is in the air and the seeding begins, the cloud freezes in a few moments, and the precipitation begins minutes later,” described Augustus Doricko.
All with an unbeatable price: 50 euros per hour of drone release, 80 times cheaper than by plane. Unfortunately, on the day of filming, all the technology in the world was not enough to bring rain. A thin gray veil too lightly loaded with water covers the entire region. But when conditions are right, Rainmaker’s drones climb several kilometers in altitude to reach cumulus clouds. Making round trips for hours, even several days, the company claims a precipitation increase of 15% compared to normal.
Meteorologists, drone pilots, engineers, Rainmaker now has 120 employees and raised $25 million in investment last year. Its founder would have every reason to be happy, if not for the death threats he regularly receives online.
On July 4, 2025, torrential rains hit Texas. 135 people die, including many children. Quickly, some influencers accuse the Californian company. “This company was carrying out weather modification operations in Texas two days before the floods. Rainmaker will have to explain itself,” one of them attacked.
However, meteorological experts are unequivocal. No human intervention could have caused this tragedy. But Augustus admits. Behind the conspiracy theories, his technology raises many ethical questions. “Questioning the consequences and risks of cloud seeding is completely understandable. But if we do nothing against drought, we will lose our farms across the entire American West. Entire ecosystems will disappear. It will become impossible to live or work here,” he believes.
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One of Rainmaker’s biggest clients is the Utah Department of Natural Resources, which now spends $5 million a year on cloud seeding. A matter of survival. “We are currently experiencing the worst drought in the last 1,200 years. We are looking at all the options available to us, and cloud seeding is one of the tools we use. We want to do this transparently, make sure people are aware and understand what it entails,” says Joel Ferry, director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources. Three American states, among the most conservative in the country, have decided to completely ban weather modification. In Florida, it has even become a crime, punishable by 5 years in prison.
