Why won't the UK make the sun shine for the Olympics?

[lastlid]

"With the British weather threatening to put a dampener on the Olympic games, why doesn't the government just make the sun shine?

At the risk of sounding like a mad scientist unveiling a doomsday device, it can be done. In theory at least.

The Chinese government seeded clouds ahead of the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony to create a downpour elsewhere and keep the stadium dry.

This involved firing rockets packed with silver iodide crystals into rain clouds over the suburbs of Beijing.

The technique is regularly used to boost rainfall in drought-stricken areas of China, although it has proved controversial with allegations of "rain-theft" levelled at provinces which deploy precipitation shock troops too zealously.

It is also possible to "over nucleate" clouds with many particles so that they hold in their moisture until they have passed over the target area, experts say.

Rockets filled with silver iodide crystals or dry ice are fired into rain clouds from light aircraft or the ground
The icy particles freeze water droplets so that they continue growing in size and eventually fall out of the cloud as snow which turns to rain before it reaches the ground
The method only works on small or medium-sized clouds
Cloud-seeding has no impact on large storm systems
it is also expensive - and there are also environmental concerns about using silver iodide
But it can speed up, delay or change the place where rain will fall
Cloud-seeding is used around the world to prevent fog at airports, stop hail damage in cities or to boost snowfall at ski resorts.

The UK has had a chequered history with the technique. Thirty-five deaths in the 1952 Lynmouth flood disaster came days after RAF rain-making experiments over souther
"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18817945

[Dedworth]

Interesting article - I never knew about rainmaking and that fatal flood bit about it here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...ainmakers.html

[Iani]

The sun is shining - it's just above the clouds.

Ok ok, not helpful, but let's not get too down about it just yet, the "experts" think it might improve by the weekend.
Crazy really though to hold the Olympics in this country when you think

[Dedworth]

The sun is shining - it's just above the clouds.

Ok ok, not helpful, but let's not get too down about it just yet, the "experts" think it might improve by the weekend.
Crazy really though to hold the Olympics in this country when you think

I heard Monday on the radio that for the £8 billion this obscene jamboree is costing we could have had amongst other things 4000 new doctors, 20000 new nurses or 30000 new troops for the next 20 years

[lastlid]

Interesting article - I never knew about rainmaking and that fatal flood bit about it here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...ainmakers.html

I heard about this sort of thing at school, in geography classes but at the time it was even more in its infancy. I didn't realise that the Chinese had used it at the last Olympics...

[lastlid]

Perhaps it could be used in the Philippines to neutralise typhoon rain? However I tend to think that if you tinker with the elements too much, it will always have some negative side effect and bite you in the

[lastlid]

Jim Dale, senior risk meteorologist at British Weather Services, says it is theoretically possible to modify weather in the UK - but one major stumbling block, apart from the expense, is that it simply shifts the rain elsewhere.

He told BBC Radio 5 Live: "In our case we would be trying to make it rain in Reading or Slough rather than London."

Looks like they would dump the rain on Reading and Slough

[lastlid]

Jim Dale, senior risk meteorologist at British Weather Services, says it is theoretically possible to modify weather in the UK - but one major stumbling block, apart from the expense, is that it simply shifts the rain elsewhere.

He told BBC Radio 5 Live: "In our case we would be trying to make it rain in Reading or Slough rather than London."

Looks like they would dump the rain on Reading and Slough

[Dedworth]

I can think of far worse I'd like to dump on those two toilet towns

[Iani]

^^^^^^ What he said

[grahamw48]

Forecast is good anyway.