{"id":145823,"date":"2025-11-18T05:24:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T05:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/145823\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T05:24:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T05:24:15","slug":"iran-turns-to-cloud-seeding-as-historic-drought-causes-driest-fall-in-50-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/145823\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran turns to cloud-seeding as historic drought causes driest fall in 50 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi25pgja00oz28p86l4724ie@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            To combat a severe water crisis, Iranian authorities have begun cloud-seeding operations to induce rainfall, Iran\u2019s state-run IRNA news agency reported on Saturday, amid the driest fall in half a century.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi25qg6800053b6nj861nd2j@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            Iran\u2019s National Weather Forecasting Center of the Meteorological Organizations said Saturday that rainfall across the country has decreased by about 89% compared to the long-term average, making this the driest Autumn Iran has experienced in the past 50 years.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi25qg6900063b6ne6l8l4gj@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2024\/04\/17\/weather\/cloud-seeding-dubai-explained\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cloud-seeding <\/a>operation was carried out \u201cby aircraft equipped with cloud seeding equipment\u201d in the Lake Urmia basin in the northwest of the country, IRNA said.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi25qg6900073b6nwfqjebhv@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            It\u2019s a process used in Iran for years, in which chemicals are dispersed into clouds to stimulate the release of moisture as rain.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi25qg6900083b6nepesdiz4@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            This comes as Iran experiences one of its worst droughts on record, and its fifth consecutive year of drought. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/07\/31\/climate\/tehran-iran-water-crisis-day-zero\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Key reservoirs are shrinking<\/a> as rainfall is at record lows, and authorities are scrambling to reduce water consumption, and residents are desperately trying to conserve it to stave off catastrophe.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi25qg6900093b6nmpmhx4qi@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2021\/08\/22\/middleeast\/middle-east-climate-water-shortage-iran-urmia-intl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Just two decades ago<\/a>, Lake Urmia was the Middle East\u2019s largest lake, and its local economy thrived with hotels and restaurants catering to tourists. Now, boats sit rusted and immobile on land that is rapidly turning into a salt plain.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi25qg69000a3b6nngl1bnmo@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            Climate change is making an already severe situation significantly worse.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi25qg69000b3b6nwyq34tyf@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            An acute water crisis \u201chas even raised alarms about drinking-water supplies in major cities, including the capital Tehran,\u201d Iran\u2019s state-run Press TV said in a report on Sunday.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi25qg69000c3b6nwwe4ppgh@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            Mohammad Mehdi Javadian-Zadeh, the head of the National Cloud-Seeding Research Center, said these cloud-seeding operations will continue until mid-May \u201cwhether by airplane or drone, and if suitable systems exist in the country,\u201d as cited by IRNA.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmi25qg69000d3b6n980zrgmr@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            \u201cConsidering that our country is located in arid regions and the urgent need for renewable water resources, cloud seeding is only performed to increase precipitation in various catchment basins,\u201d Javadian-Zadeh added.\n    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To combat a severe water crisis, Iranian authorities have begun cloud-seeding operations to induce rainfall, Iran\u2019s state-run IRNA&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-145823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}