Cloud seeding can work only when a suitable cloud already exists and its water and ice conditions fit the seeding method. Glaciogenic seeding is aimed at clouds containing supercooled liquid water; hygroscopic seeding targets liquid droplets. Seeding cannot create rain-bearing clouds from clear air, and there is no single temperature, wind-speed or cloud-depth threshold that applies to every cloud.
Why cloud conditions matter
Cloud seeding tries to influence processes already underway inside a cloud. It does not supply the moisture or energy needed to build a cloud system. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says weather modification cannot create rain-bearing cloud systems, redirect winds to bring moisture to a region or eliminate severe weather.
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The relevant conditions depend on the cloud’s phase, natural development and the seeding approach. A method intended to promote ice formation is not interchangeable with one intended to change how liquid droplets grow.
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Conditions for glaciogenic seeding
Glaciogenic seeding targets supercooled liquid water: droplets that remain liquid below 0°C. It is also used in mixed-phase clouds, where liquid droplets and ice particles coexist. The aim is to encourage ice formation so crystals can grow and contribute to precipitation.
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In winter mountain, orographic clouds, terrain lifts air and cools it, creating conditions that can include supercooled water. Seeding adds ice-nucleating particles; silver iodide is used because its crystalline structure resembles ice and can induce freezing in supercooled cloud water, as described by NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.
The WMO identifies evidence-based causal support for wintertime orographic seeding, as well as evidence from some frontal clouds containing supercooled liquid water. Its Statement on Weather Modification, dated 14 June 2025 and based on information current through June 2024, describes glaciogenic seeding as being used on supercooled liquid and mixed-phase clouds to induce ice-phase precipitation. This evidence applies to those cloud settings; it does not establish that the same approach will work in every region or cloud.
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Conditions for hygroscopic seeding
Hygroscopic seeding targets the liquid portion of a cloud. The intended mechanism is to affect the number and size of droplets, encouraging them to collide and merge into larger drops that may precipitate more efficiently. It is often attempted in convective clouds.
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Convective clouds can develop rapidly and vary greatly from one event to another. That natural variability can mask any seeding signal, so a physically plausible mechanism does not by itself prove that seeding increased rainfall. The WMO says that cloud-selection criteria vary widely by cloud type and that results from one trial cannot be directly applied to a different environment.
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Why there is no universal weather threshold
No single minimum cloud temperature, liquid-water content, wind speed or cloud depth can be given for all cloud-seeding operations from the cited evidence. Favorable conditions depend on cloud type and the physical process a program is trying to influence. A threshold that might be relevant to one setting cannot safely be treated as a general rule.
The practical question is not simply whether it is cold, cloudy or windy. It is whether observations show the right cloud structure and water phase for the chosen method, and whether the cloud is likely to evolve in a way that permits the intended process.
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Which targets are poor fits or remain uncertain?
Hurricanes and other severe weather
Cloud seeding is not an established way to steer or weaken hurricanes. The U.S. Government Accountability Office reports that past U.S. hurricane-seeding research could not separate any intervention effect from natural variability; observations also found too little supercooled liquid water and too much naturally occurring ice for the proposed approach. The WMO says there is no generally accepted evidence that tropical cyclones can be modified, and no demonstrated method to use cloud seeding to modify tornadoes, lightning danger or floods.
Hail suppression
Hail-seeding operations have been attempted, but the WMO says experiments have not convincingly established the underlying scientific concepts. Hailstorms are energetic, dynamic and naturally variable, so hail suppression should be understood as an uncertain application rather than a proven outcome.
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How to tell whether a seeding claim is credible
Because clouds and precipitation vary naturally, a rainfall increase after a seeding operation does not establish that the operation caused it. A stronger evaluation needs both a fair comparison and evidence that the proposed cloud process occurred.
- Set objective eligibility criteria: define in advance which observed cloud events have the physical conditions needed for the method.
- Randomize eligible events: assign some to treatment and others to remain untreated, rather than choosing treatment based on how promising an event looks.
- Compare precipitation outcomes: estimate the difference between treated and untreated events and report confidence intervals to show uncertainty.
- Check the mechanism: test whether the expected changes in cloud ice, droplets or precipitation processes actually occurred.
- Constrain models with observations: numerical simulations should account for model uncertainty and be checked against measurements.
A simple before-and-after comparison is not enough to establish causation when weather varies on its own.
What this means in practice
Cloud seeding is most scientifically supported when the cloud already contains the specific water phase a method is designed to affect—especially supercooled or mixed-phase water in winter orographic clouds for glaciogenic seeding. Liquid-cloud methods have a different target, and results from one cloud type, location or trial do not automatically transfer to another. Without suitable clouds, the right microphysics and a controlled evaluation, a claim of success is difficult to distinguish from natural weather variability.
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