Control the Rain - Cloud Seeding

Zzzt writes "The Times Online reports that Russian president Putin will assure plesant weather at the Russian St. Petersburg 300th anniversary festival by seeding clouds. They plan to shoot dry ice into the clouds to get the moisture to condense prematurely. 'Vladimir Stepanenko, head physicist of St Petersburg's Geophysics Observatory, said: 'Our aim is to empty all clouds of rain before they hit the city borders.'' There is also brief mention of other fun things Russians do with weather control."

Comments

Vietnam?

[Bob Zer Fish]

I seem to remember someone saying that the Americans attempted to use this ploy against the Vietnamese. The vietnamese, being quite good at irrigiation, just irrgated huge areas of land, and the rain just was diverted elsewhere. Can anyone verify this?

Rain-making linked to killer flood

[eddy the lip]

I'm sure advances have been since 1952, but I still think I'd avoid St. Petersburg (or at least the outlying villages). It didn't work out so well for the Brits.

Artificial rain making operations may have caused a storm that nearly wiped out an English village in 1952. New evidence has emerged that the UK's Royal Air Force was carrying out cloud seeding experiments that could in theory have led to the disaster.
New Scientist Article