#cloud-seeding

#cloud-seeding

Augustus Doricko, founder and CEO of cloud-seeding startup Rainmaker, surveys the sky from a sunbaked hillside 5 miles from Utah's Great Salt Lake. On this balmy Sunday afternoon in late September, the lake is calm, but its serenity belies a potentially catastrophic problem: The Great Salt Lake is shrinking-and is at risk of disappearing altogether. At its peak 40 years ago, the lake covered 2,300 square miles; today, more than 800 square miles of lake bed are exposed.

Water, and its absence, has become Iran's national obsession. In the mosques of northern Tehran the imams have been praying for rain, while the meteorologists count down the hours until the weather is forecast to break and rain is finally due to fall from the sky. Forecasts of rain-producing clouds are front-page news. More than 50 days have passed since the start of Iran's rainy season and more than 20 provinces have not yet had a drop.