Throughout history, man has tried to control the forces and processes of nature. Agriculture is just one example. We learned to farm so that we could control food sources on our own terms rather than desperately hunting and searching for food.

However, one force of nature that we haven’t been able to tame—the weather—affects agriculture severely. Sure, we have found ways to shield ourselves from the weather (buildings) and have even produced environments within buildings (indoor ski slopes). But we are still at the mercy of Earth’s climate systems, such as droughts and monsoons.

There have been significant world applications of weather modification. The US military created artificial rain during the Vietnam War, and China controlled the weather for the 2008 Olympics. Although these were serious projects, we’re going to explore the crazier stuff—from theory to practice—instead.

10 Examples Of Cloud Seeding And Weather Control

10 Shoot And Be Noisy To Stop Hail

A hailstorm can easily destroy fields of crops. Even in ancient times, some people realized that they couldn’t pray away the hail. In fact, ancient Roman legal code called the Twelve Tables prohibited superstition in the fight against hail. Technically, it didn’t say anything about fighting hail with weapons and sound, though.

This started a tradition despite laws to stop people from doing so. In 789, Charlemagne (aka Charles The Great), king of the Franks, had to forbid people from ringing church bells and exhibiting prayer tables every time there was hail.

Later, people moved to firing arrows at the clouds. When gunpowder became widespread, cannons, muskets, and rifles were used. In 1750, the Austrian Empire made this illegal. However, by 1886, they seemed to have given up and were conducting their own anti-hail experiments by firing big mortars at the clouds.^[1]

9 Plant Forest, Burn, Repeat

In 1836, James Pollard Espy, the US government’s first official meteorologist, devised an answer to the question of how to cause storms: set stuff on fire. His theory was that storms are created by hot air rising in columns (which produces rainfall).

He wanted a forest stretching north to south in the western US. Sections could be burned if rain was requested by farmers. This idea was rejected by the government despite his polite request for a 966-kilometer (600 mi) stretch to use as a test. Some scientists pointed out that forest fires happen all the time without creating rainfall, which didn’t help his case.

However, some people were worried that Espy’s method would be successful and give power to the federal government to control the weather. Senator John Crittenden of Kentucky noted, “And if he possesses the power of causing rain, he may also possess the power of withholding it.”^[2]

Essentially, they thought Espy was going to turn into a crazed weather dictator with government approval.

8 Blowing Up Government Money

At least one man was given money by the US Congress to carry out his weather experiments. In August 1891, Robert St. George Dyrenforth traveled to Midland, Texas, with $9,000 worth of an arsenal, including massive kites, 3- to 6-meter-tall (10–20 ft) balloons, mortars, six kegs of blasting powder, and 230 kilograms (500 lb) of manganese oxide.

The plan: Blow up the sky with exploding kites and balloons.^[3]

Initially, things went well because no big newspapers sent reporters to check on Dyrenforth. He was taking credit for rain that happened far away from his site and even for showers predicted by the Weather Bureau. The Sun described it as “a great success” despite never having been there.

In 1892, Congress gave Dyrenforth another $10,000, but his luck ran out. In October 1892, his nighttime explosions in the Washington, DC, area around Fort Myer produced nothing in the diverse community but “profanity in 17 different languages.”

By December, Dyrenforth had moved to Texas. There, the media started turning against him. A San Antonio newspaper wrote that his plans had “gone up like a rocket and come down like a stick.” After that, Congress refused to give him the remaining $5,000 in his budget, which ended his adventure.

7 The Rainmaking Gun

The Steiger Vortex gun, designed by Albert Steiger, was a 5-meter-tall (16.4 ft) metal device shaped like an ice cream cone. The gun was designed to produce vibrations that destroyed hail and caused rain. It was used in Austria to protect wine-growing regions.

Clement Wragge, a government meteorologist in Australia, was impressed by this and decided to bring the technology back to his homeland. Six guns were placed in Charleville in September 1902. Despite firing repeatedly at two-minute intervals, no rain was produced. In fact, the only thing dampened was Wragge’s career in meteorology.^[4]

6 Melting The Ice Caps

In this era of climate change anxiety, we are often told that we should be concerned with the melting of ice caps and the poles. Back in the day, though, they wanted to declare outright war on these things.

Writing in The Atlantic Monthly in 1877, N.S. Shaler had nothing but hate for the poles, describing the cold weather they brought as “ruthless as Huns, slaying and scalping all the creatures of summer like barbarians as they are.”

In his opinion, we needed to reroute the Pacific Ocean’s warm Kuroshio Current through the Bering Strait. This would cause arctic temperatures to rise by 16.67 degrees Celsius (30 °F), and we wouldn’t have to deal with winter anymore in North America.^[5]

10 Conspiracy Theories About Weather Modification

5 Move The Earth

In late 1912, the North Pole and the South Pole were still considered the enemy. According to The New York Times, we needed to end “the iceberg menace.” The Titanic had sunk in April of that year, so maybe the hostility was understandable. Carroll Livingston Riker, an engineer from New York, had a $190 million plan.^[6]

He wanted to reroute the Gulf Stream by building a 320-kilometer (200 mi) jetty eastward from Newfoundland. This would have obstructed the cold Labrador Current and moved it eastward to meet the Gulf Stream (which was moving northward) in deep water. The jetty would have had 9 meters (30 ft) of rocks upon it.

Warm water is lighter than cold water, so warm water would have been able to travel farther—approximately 645 kilometers (400 mi) north to warm those currents as well. According to Riker’s theory, this would have melted Greenland’s heavy ice cap and shifted the Earth’s axis.

Nothing came of these plans, and the poles were safe for another day.

4 The Nuclear Solution

In 1945, Julian Huxley, a cofounder of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), spoke at a conference in Madison Square Garden about using nuclear bombs as “atomic dynamite [for] landscaping the Earth” (melting the polar ice cap).

This was extremely inappropriate for two reasons. First, the US had just dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan, killing over 100,000 people. Second, this conference was about arms control, which leaves us somewhat doubtful that the participants wanted to drop more nuclear bombs.^[7]

3 Build A Huge Dam

Although Russia is a huge landmass, a lot of it is covered in ice or is inhospitable due to the extreme cold. During the Cold War, the Soviets planned to build a massive dam from their eastern coast to Alaska. This was another attempt to direct the Gulf Stream up north and warm the Arctic. In this case, it would have opened up more landmass for the Soviets to use.^[8]

Even crazier, the Americans almost agreed to this plan despite being in the middle of the Cold War. The Soviets argued that everyone was likely to benefit from a warmer climate. The idea was floated to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists who brought up the matter in the 1960 presidential debates.

Then-Senator John F. Kennedy responded that it was “certainly worth exploring” in the context of greater cooperation.

2 Grand Theft Cloud

In 2018, Iran accused Israel of stealing water from clouds before they reached Iran. At that time, Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali, head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization, declared, “We are faced with the cases of cloud theft and snow theft.” He also referred to a study which had concluded that all highlands above 2,200 meters (7,200 ft) from the Mediterranean to Afghanistan—except for those in Iran—had received snowfall.

Fortunately, Ahad Vazife of the Iran Meteorological Organization stepped in to stop this from escalating into a full-scale diplomatic war at a time when the two countries were at odds over Syria. Vazife pointed out that if countries could hijack clouds, then the US would not have been suffering from a water shortage. According to Vazife, the Americans would have just stolen someone else’s rainfall.^[9]

1 Burning Up The Sky

Sometimes, seemingly crazy ideas can work. During World War II, the Royal Air Force (RAF) invented the Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operation (FIDO) system to allow their planes to take off in foggy conditions.

FIDO worked by running pipes with burners around airfields. These would be fed by tanks of petrol, causing flames to shoot up and raise temperatures enough to disperse fog. It allowed the RAF to get planes airborne and attack German forces that were still grounded by the fog.^[10]

The operation ran from 1943 to 1945 but was discontinued due to the costs. The RAF had burned over 380,000 liters (100,000 gal) of petrol per hour to operate FIDO. The project remained dormant until 1959 when the last system was removed from RAF Manston.

10 Types Of Alien Weather That Put Earth To Shame

Weather is notoriously unpredictable. A sharply dressed weatherman smiles brightly through your TV set on a Monday morning, promising a sunny day, only for you to get caught up in a hailstorm of note and arrive at work late in a car peppered with dents.

Weather can also be extremely dangerous. Tornadoes, hurricanes and blizzards, to name but a few, cause havoc around the globe every year leaving death and destruction in their wake.
On this list are some of Earth’s most terrifying weather events caught on camera or drawn and painted for posterity, and serving as an ongoing warning to always seek shelter sooner rather than later.

10 Intense Extraterrestrial Storms

10 Rain bomb

In 2016, storm chaser Bryan Snyder was busy taking a time-lapse video of a storm over Tucson when he witnessed a rare sight. A giant mass of water seemed to plummet to the ground in what is known as a ‘rain bomb’ or microburst. Microbursts happen when a shaft of cooler air descends through heavy storm clouds and can lead to winds of 150 miles per hour that can rip trees clean from the ground.

Rain bombs mainly occur in the Midwestern United States and can be either wet or dry. They usually only last around 10 minutes but because of their sheer size, they look very scary.

9 Gargantuan hail stones

Libya is located in North Africa and is a predominantly desert country that sees very little rain on an annual basis.

However, in October 2020 an upper trough moved across the Mediterranean and brought with it a storm that produced ‘gargantuan’ hail stones. The photographs that emerged of the incident brings to mind disaster movie scenes such as Geostorm, with some of the hailstones held in both hands because they were so massive.

Researchers at the time believed that the giant hailstones were a record for the African continent and quite possibly some of the largest ever photographed.

8 The Big Wind of 1839

The above image depicts the worst recorded storm in Irish history. It is believed that a Category 4 (Category 5 in some descriptions) hurricane slammed into Ireland on 6 January 1839, killing around 500 in Ireland, a further 300 in the UK, and causing massive destruction.

The day before, a huge snowstorm blanketed the country leading people to believe that the drifts would take days to melt. However, 6 January broke sunny and bright and soon there was no snow to be seen. In the west of Ireland, people soon started noticing an eerie silence and when broke it by speaking to one another their voices travelled at unusually great distances.

The bright sunny day didn’t last as storm clouds started rolling in. Even as towns were plunged into near total darkness one after another, no one expected the horror that was to come. The wind picked up steadily until it reached hurricane force. Animals were lifted from the ground like ragdolls and terrified residents sought shelter in the old Parliament House.

A storm of this magnitude hasn’t repeated itself on Irish shores to date.

7 The Great Ice Storm of 1998

An ice storm descended upon northern New England, northern New York as well as southern Canada between 5 and 9 January 1998 and was heavily influenced by a strong “El-Nino” pattern that had been observed during the 1997 and 1998 winter period.

The storm caused loss of electricity to five million people, destroyed 11,000 hydro poles in Ontario alone, led to the deaths of 35 people and caused $3 billion worth of damage. In addition to this, around 300,000 farm animals perished from the cold.

Dubbed the Great Ice Storm of 1998, the storm was a combination of five smaller ice storms and let to the deployment of 16,000 Canadian military personnel; the largest deployment since the Korean war.

In 2014, scientists released a study that found pregnant women’s stress levels during the ice storm affected the genetic expression of their children. This meant that the possibility exists that these children were at greater risk to develop asthma or diabetes, because of the change in their genetic expression.

6 Typhoon Haiyan

In November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan slammed into the Philippines with wind speeds of up to 313 km/h. In some areas, the typhoon dumped up to 281mm of rainfall in under 12 hours while 7-meter waves battered the coastline. More than 7,000 people died, while around 6 million were displaced.

Typhoon Haiyan remains one of the deadliest typhoons on record and was the most powerful storm of 2013. When it made landfall in the Philippines it was a Category 5 storm making for terrifying visuals. It is considered to be the country’s worst natural disaster and it also caused damage in Palau, Vietnam and China.

5 Satan’s Storm

Saying that the Lone Star State is hot is like saying the sky is blue, but during one night in 1960, residents of Central Texas experienced the heat like never before. A burst of hot air hit the area near Kopperl just after midnight on June 15, causing crops to be burned up in an instant and automobile radiators to reach boiling point.

The heat burst appeared as the last of a thunderstorm collapsed over Kopperl. The lack of precipitation caused superheated air to descend at a speed of 121 kilometers per hour. At its peak the temperature came very close to reaching 140 degrees Fahrenheit. (60 degrees Celsius)

Terrified people wrapped their children in soaking wet towels and sheets, out of fear that the event signalled the start of Armageddon.
This meteorological phenomenon was soon dubbed “Satan’s Storm” and quickly earned a place in Texas folklore.

4 Black Sunday

People living across the Central Plains were overjoyed to see the sun on Sunday April 14, 1935 after weeks of massive dust storms sweeping over their farms and destroying over five million acres of wheat. The sunshine didn’t last long unfortunately and before they knew it, a terrifying 1000-mile-long black cloud approached at around 60 miles per hour (96 km per hour) and overtook those who tried to outrun it. Some people wandered off the road, blinded by the black dust. Others sat in abandoned structures for four hours, praying the dust wouldn’t smother them.

17 people died from dust pneumonia and dust suffocation and several birds were found dead after the black cloud eventually subsided. Black Sunday formed part of the devasting events of the Dust Bowl era which in total left more than half a million people homeless.

3 Volcanic tornado

The peace was violently disturbed on Big Island in 2018 when the Kilauea volcano erupted in spectacular fashion in May, destroying homes as it spewed huge molten rocks. 2000 people were evacuated and by 27 May 24 fissures had erupted lava.

As if that alone wasn’t scary enough, the lava fountains which had begun fluctuating as high as 230 feet, gave rise to a so-called volcanic tornado. This tornado was ‘born’ after the intense heat caused the air to rise rapidly and form a vortex. Volcanic tornadoes can pick up pieces of lava and fling it about, causing even more destruction.

In 2014, volcanic tornadoes swirled above the lava of Iceland’s Holuhraun eruption in a cloud of poisonous sulfur dioxide gas. Despite the dangerous conditions posed by these tornadoes, scientists and journalists alike had to be sternly persuaded by police officials to leave the lava field.

2 Central China Floods

In what would eventually be one of the deadliest natural disasters of the 20th century, China experienced great loss of life in 1931 during a number of floods that hit the Republic. The months between July and November of that year saw strange weather patterns making itself visible as heavy snow and then rainfall soaked the area after years of drought.

As the unusually heavy rainfall continued into August, several cyclones also hit the country and this led to the Yangtze River, Yellow River and Huai River bursting their banks. Those who survived the flooding were soon exposed to typhus and cholera and out of sheer desperation, many turned to cannibalism and infanticide to stay alive. Some people took to selling their children or wives to ensure their survival. However, millions who survived the flooding, soon died from starvation as entire rice crops were wiped out. The overall death toll is estimated to be around 4 million.

It is thought that if flood-control measures were followed, much of the disaster could have been averted.

1 Joplin tornado

As tornado sirens wailed throughout Joplin on 22 May 2011, many residents either ignored it completely or were slow to get to shelter. It is believed that this was mainly due to the number of false alarms over the years.

Daniel Fluharty was working at a Pizza Hut at the time and he and some of his co-workers walked outside to see if they could catch a glimpse of a tornado. What they saw was a monster EF5 twister so huge they couldn’t see a funnel and they initially thought they were looking at a thunderstorm. One of Fluharty’s co-workers made sure everyone was safe by ushering employees and patrons into a walk-in freezer. Veteran Christopher Lucas, however, didn’t survive and was hailed a hero afterwards.

The multiple-vortex tornado killed 161 people and resulted in damage to the sum of $2.8 billion.

10 Terrifying Storms Straight Out Of The Apocalypse

Nearly every ancient polytheistic culture had gods of the weather. Most of us are aware of Thor, the god of thunder, but there were gods of the wind and rain and lightning and more throughout North and South America, Africa and Asia. Weather has always fascinated and confused mankind. And even today, when we can explain it all with science rather than the whims of all-powerful beings, there are still phenomena that pop up every so often to baffle the best of us, some of it not strictly weather at all.  So with that in mind, let’s check out 10 of the freakiest weather phenomena in the world.

10. The Kentucky Meat Shower

Rest assured, it does not routinely rain meat anywhere in Kentucky. But that doesn’t mean it never happened. And when you learn the whole story, you’ll wish it just was meat rain because that’s far less disgusting than the truth of this perplexing event.

There was a day back in 1876 when the people of Olympia Springs were treated to a show of meat from the heavens that was said to be fairly substantial in size. One witness described it as a “horse wagon full” which was not a literal measurement, just an 1876 way of saying “a lot.” It covered a space 100 yards by 50 yards. 

So the people came out to see the meat, which fell in small chunks and scraps. A few brave and/or foolish souls opted to taste test the meat as well to see if they could figure out what it was. 

The meat was sent for analysis and while most locals lost interest, one scientist did come up with an explanation. The meat was from vultures. Which is to say they ate it and then, as they took flight, they vomited it across the town. 

Turns out vultures, when panicked, will throw up everywhere. This makes them lighter and allows for a quicker getaway. Based on the condition of the meat, the theory fits the details. 

9. Watermelon Snow

Watermelon snow sounds like it should be delicious, but we recommend not putting it in your mouth should you ever see it. It’s less of a tasty, refreshing treat than it is snow laced with algae called Chlamydomonas nivalis. Unlike most algae, which is happy to grow in stagnant water or ponds, this kind just likes snow. And while technically you can survive eating small quantities of it, you’ll probably get diarrhea for your troubles. 

It’s usually what’s known as a summer snow algae, meaning it flourishes in snow that stays in high altitude places into the summer months when lower altitude regions are enjoying warmer weather. It forms reddish pink streaks or pockets through the snow that can be mistaken for blood. The red part actually protects the algae from UV radiation.

8. Star Jelly

There’s a good chance you could market a product called Star Jelly as a breakfast food, but that’s neither here nor there. In real life, star jelly owes its origins to a potential cornucopia of sources thanks to the fact humans tend to lump mysterious slime all into the same category. 

While folklore suggested it fell from the sky (hence the name), the fact is star jelly may come from numerous places and some of it could potentially be dangerous. It may be as simple as the oviducts of frogs or gelatinous, aquatic Bryozoa clustered together. Some times of fungus may form into jelly-like clusters, especially if they’re rotting, and even slime molds fit the bill.

7. Atmospheric Rivers and Lakes

A relatively new discovery, atmospheric lakes and rivers are very much like what they sound like. The concept of atmospheric rivers is a little older than lakes and they are pretty remarkable. Able to reach lengths of 1000 miles while stretching 400 miles across, an atmospheric river is a stream of water vapor in the atmosphere that can dump a heck of a lot of water when they come down. Up to the equivalent of 25 Mississippi rivers. If that’s a little too intense for you, then there’s the more recently discovered atmospheric lake. 

Similar to an atmospheric river but not as fast moving, an atmospheric lake is a vast pool of water vapor in the clouds. It is, in effect, a lake in the sky. Unlike the river, which sounds very intense, an atmospheric lake discovered over the Indian Ocean was believed to have enough water held within it to create a puddle 620 miles wide, but only a couple of inches deep. They move in areas with almost no wind at all and form in equatorial regions near coastal areas. They can also last nearly a week as they slowly float along, bringing rains to often very dry and arid places.

6. Sun Dogs

Anything with a name like a sun dog has to be at least a little bit cool and luckily this rare phenomenon really is. You have to be very lucky to find a sun dog as conditions need to be exact. The right angle is needed, in this case 22 degrees. There have to be ice crystals in the atmosphere inside of cirrus or cirrostratus clouds. If the clouds and you, the viewer, are in the right position, then what you get is a sun dog or mock sun.

The effect of a sun dog is that the sun looks to be surrounded by a massive halo of light and, on either side of it at the halo’s edge, another sun is visible. Depending on how it’s viewed, they can appear to have spikes or coronas coming off of them.  So three suns together, with the other two often appearing a little smaller than the actual sun overall.

5. Condo Fog

Man made climate change is a hotly debated topic these days, but if you still weren’t sure that humans can affect the weather, then take a look at condo fog for the most visual example of this that you’ll ever find. 

Famously occurring in Panama City, Florida, condo fog is what happens when hot, moist air hits a man-made wall of condominiums. It rolls in off the Gulf of Mexico and then, breaking against the wall of apartments, it rises into the air and cools down, creating a wave of white fog. 

Air cools by about one degree celsius for every 100 meters of altitude it gains. The condos forced the air up about 50 meters to get past them, but that half degree temperature drop was enough to make it condense into clouds. Once it hurdles the building, the temperature changes back and the clouds evaporate, leaving the condos and just the condos enshrouded in mist. 

Though it’s interesting to see it happening over buildings, it’s very similar to the phenomenon that leaves mountain peaks covered in fog as well. We just accept it as more normal when we see it on mountains and not buildings along the coast. 

4. Steam Devils

A dust devil is what happens when a patch of dry ground heats up more than the ground around it and the rising air begins to circulate like a sort of weak tornado, bringing the dust up off the ground with it. It’s not the most common phenomena but many of us have at least heard of it. It’s not the only weather devil out there, though. The much rarer but equally stygian steam devil is in some ways the opposite of its dusty cousin, occurring over bodies of water or damp ground rather than dusty patches of land. They’ve been observed forming on frosty grass when the sun hits it and begins to warm the frozen surface to create the temperature difference needed. 

Like a dust devil, it’s formed when conflicting air temperatures create a vortex. In this case, the water on which a steam devil forms is typically warm when a blast of colder air reaches it. The warm, moist air from the water rises into the cold air and begins to rotate, drawing up water vapor from below. They usually don’t grow very tall, often just a couple of meters in height. 

3. Lluvia de Pecas

Animal rain is a weird phenomenon to be sure, but there’s so many articles on it these days that it’s easy to stumble on explanations. Typically, the reason things like fish and frogs fall from the sky is related to waterspouts sucking animals out of a body of water and displacing them elsewhere or just flash floods, making it look like they fell after a storm. But the fish rain known as lluvia de pecas in Yoro, Honduras, works a little differently.

Yoro has the distinction of enjoying regular fish rain. It happens once or twice a year and has been witnessed by teams from places like National Geographic. Or, at least, in part it has. They couldn’t confirm the fish falling from the sky, but they did see fish on the ground. 

The small, silvery fish that appear are not a local species. They also appear to be blind. That has led some to speculate that they populate an underground river and, during particularly violent storms, they are forced to the surface during floods and left on the ground. This would account for why they are always in the same place rather than all over, such as if a waterspout was depositing them.

2. Blackbird Shower

History is riddled with tales of animals falling from the sky. The lluvia de pecas is just one example of many. It rains frogs and also tadpoles. Spiders have been known to fall like rain and maggots, too. And in 2022, hundreds of yellow-headed blackbirds fell from the sky over Chihuahua, Mexico. 

Unlike many of the animal rain events that have happened in the past, the blackbird incident was caught on camera, so you can see it happen firsthand and it’s pretty dramatic. The birds crash like someone dropped them by the bucket load and sadly, many of them didn’t survive the fall. But why did it happen in the first place? Frogs at least have an excuse for falling when they get up into the air, but birds can fly. 

Though it’s just a theory, the most plausible explanation seems to be that the birds were “flushed,” which is to say a large, predatory bird likely swooped at the flock and, in a panic, they all dove as fast as their little wings could carry them. The result was an ill-timed escape that saw too many hit the ground too fast.

1. The Chi’yang Event 

Weather can be terrifying and deadly. It’s said that the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 killed between 8,000 and 12,000 people. In 1970, the Bhola cyclone may have killed as many as 500,000 people. Around 20 people per year are killed by lightning in the United States. And a few people have even been killed by hail. But what about some other devastation from the sky? How deadly is it when it rains fire?

In the year 1490, the people of Ch’ing-yang, China, were witness to what is now believed to be an exploding asteroid. At the time, however, it was considered a rain of rocks peppering the countryside with death and destruction.

It’s believed at least 10,000 people died in the event. The stones that fell were said to weigh between 1 and 1.5 kilograms. In more understandable terms, some were supposed to be the size of water chestnuts while others were the size of goose eggs. But they were also falling from space and their speed must have been incredible.

Historical reports of the incident are considered to be reliable and there is precedent for objects breaking into many thousands of pieces, which could explain the death toll if it happened in a populated area.