Climate control: United States weather modification in the cold war and beyond

Rainmaking, hail busting, fog lifting, snowpack enhancing, lightning suppressing, hurricane snuffing…weather control. At the lunatic fringe of scientific discussion in the early twentieth century - and the subject of newspaper articles with tones ranging from skeptical titters to awestruck wonder - weather modification research became more serious after World War II. In the United States, the 'seeds' of silver iodide and dry ice purported to enhance rainfall and bust hailstorms soon became seeds of controversy from which sprouted attempts by federal, state and local government to control the controllers and exploit 'designer weather' for their own purposes.