This sounds fake as hell but it does have some scientific backup: A luxury travel company is offering a $US150,000 cloud-killing package to guarantee sunny wedding days in the south of France. Pilots will consult with meteorologists to fly planes near the ceremony space three weeks leading up to the wedding. The planes spray silver iodide at clouds, which is supposed to cause them to condense and get all the rain out of the way. Boom! Sunny pictures.
You know Kim and Kanye looked into this.
This plan is controversial but it does have support. Many scientists are confident that these cloud-killing sprays can affect the weather. Cloud-seeding with silver iodide is used in Canada to shrink hail storms as they happen. In China, making artificial rain this way is a fairly common practice, and it was used in the Beijing Olympics to help ensure clear skies. In Wyoming, a study concluded that cloud-seeding increased snowfall by up to 15 per cent, and Arizona may use it to combat drought.
Then again… there’s no consensus that using chemicals to force precipitation is effective, or harmless. And recent initiatives to stop a drought in China using cloud-seeding didn’t work. So it’s necessary to be deeply sceptical here about the company’s claims that it can guarantee sunshine.
Even if cloud-seeding was 100% effective, it costs $US150,000 to to make it rain before your wedding so it doesn’t rain on your wedding. For that eye-bleeding amount of money, you should be able to reschedule your wedding several times, or also do something much, much more useful with it.
[Petapixel [Oliver’s Travels]]