Engineer Says 'It's Critically Important' The US Invests Heavily In Weather Modification Tech

The ability to control the weather may sound like the goal of a comic book supervillain, but the effort to modify the weather is very real. In September 2026, Rainmaker CEO Augustus Doricko told Good Morning America that the United States should do more to develop that technology. "It's critically important that the U.S. develops and wins the frontier of this tech."

Rainmaker is a California-based tech company currently working on drone-based cloud seeding, which uses silver iodide to encourage precipitation. The drones release the compound into clouds with moisture, helping ice crystals develop. Those crystals become heavy enough to fall as rain or snow. "We can produce millions of gallons of new precipitation," Doricko claimed. This process doesn't work without the right conditions though — the silver iodide alone cannot generate rain from clear skies. By repeating the process, Rainmaker hopes to make a difference in areas that struggle with water shortages and drought.

Rainmaker is now looking to the winter of 2026, where it's planning to take advantage of a strong El Nino weather pattern. Doricko has set an ambitious target for the effort, saying Rainmaker hopes to produce more measurable water through cloud seeding than the combined desalination capacity of California. The company is also currently testing a more effective and less expensive alternative to silver iodide that it has not yet disclosed. The new material is said to be organic, biodegradable, and found in American soil. Rainmaker still has to complete testing and regulatory approvals before it can use the material.

The United States is not alone in pursuing advances in weather modification technology. The UAE's Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science is focusing on drone systems as one of its five main research areas, along with new seeding materials and other technologies. China is also researching ways to bring more advanced technology into its weather modification efforts, using AI for tasks like evaluating cloud-seeding results.

Weather modification work in the U.S. is being done primarily through state and local programs and not on a federal level. Nine states had agencies either spending or planning to spend at least $20 million combined on cloud seeding in 2024. Additionally, 10 states had reported weather modification activities as of July 2025.

But there are challenges when trying to measure just how effective cloud seeding can be. At a 2025 congressional hearing, researchers and meteorologists discussed the difficulty of determining how much precipitation can be attributed to cloud seeding versus normal weather patterns.

Rainmaker came under scrutiny after some people connected the company's operations to the devastating flooding in Texas. However, meteorologist Christopher Martz testified that Rainmaker's activity took place well before the flooding and far enough away that it likely did not contribute to the event. Additionally, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation investigated the operation and found that it did not contribute to the flooding. In the end, the overall effectiveness of cloud seeding remains difficult to measure.