Particularly for Al-Baha, which heavily relies on dams and groundwater, cloud seeding may enhance both rainfall frequency and volume. However, while promising,
Iran has begun cloud seeding operations to combat extreme drought affecting several regions ... water shortages. #iran #drought #wion
By boosting rainfall or snowfall, cloud seeding can help replenish reservoirs, support irrigation, and improve drinking water availability.
Known as cloud-seeding, the process was conducted over the Urmia lake basin on Saturday, Iran's official news agency Irna reported. [Cloud seeding](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68839043) involves injecting chemical salts including silver or potassium iodide into clouds via aircraft or through generators on the ground. The technique has been around for decades, [and the UAE has used it in recent years to help address water shortages](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56428984). Iran's meteorological organisation said rainfall had decreased by about 89% this year compared with the long-term average, Irna reported. The head of Iran's National Centre for Climate and Drought Crisis Management, Ahmad Vazifeh said dams in Tehran, West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan and Markazi are in a "worrying state", with water levels in the single-digit percentages. Iranian meteorologists reported there was some rainfall in the west and northwest of the country on Saturday - with video showing snowfall on a ski resort north of Tehran for the first time this year. [## Iran faces unprecedented drought as water crisis hits Tehran](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4p2yzmem0o). [## Deadly Dubai floods made worse by climate change](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68897443).
Desperate for water, several Western states have expanded decades-old programs to increase precipitation through cloud seeding, a method of weather modification that entails releasing silver iodide particles or other aerosols into clouds to spur rain or snowfall. In the U.S. West, the need for water is so acute and cloud seeding so cheap that even a very slight increase in precipitation is worth it, says Friedrich. Cloud seeding operators submit annual reports to states estimating additional precipitation caused by their efforts, often claiming hundreds of thousands of additional acre-feet, but “it’s kind of crude,” says Eric Hjermstad, who runs Western Weather Consultants, a cloud seeding company that manages several seeding operations in Colorado. Cloud seeding costs money, but the cost is relatively low compared to the value of water, even if the reports overstate increased precipitation, proponents say. “Cloud seeding may be putting the clouds back to a more efficient state where they may have been prior to humans,” he says.
Cloud seeding allows water managers to boost the amount of snow that falls from certain storms. While the Colorado River District’s primary goal in participating in cloud seeding is to increase our water supply, cloud seeding has secondary benefits: improving snow conditions for winter recreation, such as skiing, snowboarding and snowmobiling, and improving runoff conditions that benefit summer recreation such as rafting and fishing. The Colorado River District manages the Central Colorado Mountain River Basin cloud seeding program, which operates along the northern and central Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Precipitation forms when water droplets in clouds condense on a nucleus made up of tiny particles of dust, salt or smoke, when enough water condenses onto a nucleus, the water becomes heavy enough to fall to the ground as rain, snow, sleet or hail. In the Central Colorado Mountain River Basin cloud seeding program, a small amount of silver iodide particles are sprayed across a flame emitted from a propane generator.
| GAO-25-107328 United States Government Accountability Office Highlights of GAO-25-107328, a report to congressional requesters December 2024 TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT Cloud Seeding Technology Assessing Effectiveness and Other Challenges What GAO found Cloud seeding is a decades-old approach to modifying weather that uses a range of supporting technologies for research and operations. This report discusses (1) the emerging and current technologies for cloud seeding (and weather modification generally), (2) the potential benefits of cloud seeding, (3) challenges surrounding the use and development of cloud seeding, and (4) policy options that may help address challenges or enhance benefits of cloud seeding. Cloud Seeding Technology GAO-25-107328 32 Appendix IV: International Cloud Seeding Activities Table 8 is a non-exhaustive list of 39 countries we identified that reportedly engaged in any of the listed cloud seeding activities, including research and operations, during the period 2020 through 2024.
## What is Cloud Seeding? Illustration on how cloud seeding works with silver iodide rising into the clouds and resulting in ice crystals that grow large enough to fall as snow. ## How we Cloud Seed. Most cloud seeding operations, including those run by DRI, use a compound called silver iodide (AgI) to aid in the formation of ice crystals. When storm systems move through one of our cloud seeding project areas, a solution containing a small amount of silver iodide is burned from ground-based generators or released from aircraft. Cloud seeding is used all over the world as a method for enhancing winter snowfall and increasing mountain snowpack, supplementing the natural water supply available to communities of the surrounding area. At a study site in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, Australia, a five-year cloud seeding project designed by DRI resulted in a 14 percent increase in snowfall across the project area.