Rainmaking Ask Dave a weather question

Dave Thurlow, Host

 
For centuries people have been trying to coerce water from the sky through a variety of mechanical, chemical and spiritual methods. Most of these methods have been hugely unsuccessful, but they are fun to talk about...and I'll be doing that today and tommorow here on The Weather Noteboook. Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow.

Pilot Bradley Klatt keeps his flares and airplane ready to scramble on a moment's notice to fight hailstorms. Shooting For The Clouds

Native cultures around the world have long performed ceremonies and rituals, meant to bring rain. Some include dancing, some don't. Across North America there are examples of tribal rainmakers being hired by westerners to help out with a particular dry spell. A lot of these ceremonies didn't work and the rainmaker would be of course be driven out of town.

But what's interesting here is that the concept of failure was different between the western and Native cultures. While the settlers thought the Indians were physically trying to make rain, the Indians simply looked at their actions as a request. If it didn't work than apparently the rain god had a more pressing engagement.

European attempts at rainmaking in the 18th and 19th centuries were based on the premise that loud noises made rain. After all, thunder always accompanied the heaviest rain so it must cause it. This is of course ridiculous, but it is a sound theory. Get it. Also, it was noticed in wars, that major battles were followed by a few days of rain, so again it must be noise -- booming cannons. Normal weather patterns bring rain every four days or so, and any good general would wait for clear weather to attack. In those days battles lasted three or four days, on the average, or until it started to rain again. So actually it was the rain that influenced the guns, not the other way around.

Tommorrow on the show we'll look at modern rainmaking, right here on The Weather Notebook. Our show is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory and is underwritten by Subaru, with major support provided by the National Science Foundation.