Misinformation on Cloud Seeding Swirls After Deadly Texas Floods
While all meteorological evidence shows the technology didn’t cause the extreme rainfall, conspiracy theorists have spread the debunked idea.
In the aftermath of devastating floods in Texas, social media users have spread misinformation that cloud seeding is to blame. Meteorologists have been quick to debunk the claim, but the rumors underline how weather can be a magnet for conspiracy theories.
There is no evidence that weather modification activities caused the extreme rainfall in Texas, which triggered flash flooding on Friday and claimed at least 89 lives. Days before the deluge that brought over a foot of rain, the US National Weather Service warned of locally heavy precipitation in parts of Texas and the Southwest brought by monsoonal moisture, as well as remnants of a tropical storm that made landfall in Mexico the week prior.