Triggered by the huge rainfalls in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in April 2024, I started to explore cloudseeding practices in that country (1,2), and I discovered that the Emirates spends some 1000 hours a year in cloudseeding. But what do they spray? In the video from that other article I could only discover that the National Center of Meteorology in Abu Dhabi manufactures a salt substance. If it were simply kitchen salt they wouldn’t need to manufacture it there, I would guess.

Edward Graham (4) in the video (5) below is a meteorologist at the University of the Highlands and Islands in Great Britain. He is involved in the United Arab Emirates Rain Enhancement Program (6). He said that the UAE only uses salt flares these days, and “that what you get is as kitchen salt on your kitchen table. There’s no actual harm to the environment. Traditionally chemicals like silver iodide, which mimics the crystal structure of ice, been used, but they are not used in the UAE today.“

At (11) you can hear about the possibility that the United Arab Emirates used electricity produced by drones to create rain.

SILVER IODIDE
Although Edward Graham says that the UAE doesn’t use Silver Iodide, it seems to be common practice in countries like the United States (7). Here’s an excerpt from an article from March 2024 (8):

“Currently, nine western states have cloud seeding programs, and there is no regulatory framework governing such weather modification….Cloud seeding has raised controversy, according to Yeh (9). Critics are concerned about the risks of silver iodide in the environment and about “cloud stealing,” in which practitioners — utility companies, states, or countries — are accused of diverting rain clouds from adjoining areas. Neither concern, however, has been supported by scientific research, according to Yeh“

It seems likely that Silver Iodide (AgI) is still the most widely used chemical to create rain. In a related wikipedia page we can read that some 50,000 kilogram of Silver Iodide would annually be used for cloud seeding (10). There are rumors that silver iodide is not good for aquatic life (11).

FOOTNOTES
(1) Cloudseeding in the United Arab Emirates
(2) Not only the UAE experienced flooding in April 2024. We mustn’t forget the Flooding in Orenburg, Russia
(3) Image from Cloudbusting by Kate Bush from the Album ‘Hounds of Love’ (1985)
(4) I encountered this reuters video on the Wide Awake Media channel on Telegram. The video was from CNBC International. I don’t know when it was made. If you do, please let me know.
(5) Edward Graham, Meteorologist
(6) United Arab Emirates Rain Enhancement Programme (2016-)
(7) New Hampshire introduces Bill to Prevent Geo Engineering (and chemtrails)
(8) What if every dark cloud had a silver iodide lining?
(9) Emily Yeh, a Phi Beta Kappa visiting scholar, speaks to students in Science Meets Policy in the Real World, a class taught by Morgan Ruelle, assistant professor in the Department of Sustainability and Social Justice. Yeh, a professor of geography at University of Colorado-Boulder. She also talks about stratospheric aerosol injection, something we tend to call chemtrails, but that is something for another article.
(10) Silver iodide
(11) Conservative News Feed on X: “@wideawake_media They do crazy stuff over there.” / X (twitter.com)