(The Center Square) – Several online pundits and “influencers” continue to claim that excessive rainfall and flash flooding in Texas was caused by weather manipulation and cloud seeding operations. Meteorologists overwhelmingly reject these claims, and are calling on members of the public to help those in need.
Not only is the central Texas Hill Country region known for flash floods, but the Texas legislature implemented the first cloud seeding program in west Texas in 1955. Since then, multiple counties are involved in projects spanning millions of acres, all licensed and regulated by the state, The Center Square reported.
Emmy award winning ABC13 News Houston Chief Meteorologist Travis Herzog said, “We’re all hurting over here in Texas after these floods. Children are still among the missing. The death toll is now over 100. We’re in various stages of grief and still trying to make sense of what just happened as we grapple with the reality that this flood has permanently altered the trajectory of so many family histories.”
Those making the cloud seeding claims are “inserting confusion and questions into a grieving community that really needs to be focused on other things at this time.”
Multiple people online, including those doxxing a cloud seeding company, claimed it caused the storms. The company said it didn’t operate in the affected area or on the dates of the storms.
Herzog said that its last operations were conducted on July 2 roughly 150 miles southeast of Kerr County and couldn’t have physically caused the storm. “Only an existing cloud can be seeded, and once that cloud has been seeded, it rains itself out,” he said.
Others claim online that cloud seeding causes “super storms,” which the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation refutes, saying, “There is no evidence that seeding causes clouds to grow substantially taller and produce unwanted effects (such as damaging winds, hail, and flash floods). To the contrary, the available evidence from over eight years of research in West Texas suggests cloud seeding, when done timely and accurately, contributes to more gentle, widespread, and longer-lasting rains.”
The July 4 flood “was caused by the remnants of two tropical weather systems that cannot be created nor controlled by mankind,” Herzog said, pointing to a rainfall map.
Emmy award winning CBS News Austin Meteorologist Avery Tamasco said that Texas’ “Flash Flood Alley,” in the Hill Country, is called that because of its topography and geological formation sitting at the intersection of moisture coming from the Gulf and the Pacific. Heavy rain easily erodes shallow soil common to the region. “When the soil soaks up, all that runoff runs downhill, and these are steep hills, especially along the Guadalupe River,” he said. “Which means the river rose as quickly as it did and to record levels.”
Flash Flood Alley is why engineers built dams and lakes in the region, he said. From the Llano River to the north to the Pedernales River to the south, a series of dams and lakes were built to control water from rivers like the Colorado and Guadeloupe rivers. They include the Tom Miller Dam/Lake Austin, Mansfield Dam/Lake Travis, Max Starcke Dam/Lake Marble Falls, Wirtz Dam/Lake LBJ, Inks Dam/Inks Lake and Buchanan Dam/Lake Buchanan.
Catastrophic floods have occurred in the region. Two dams were previously washed out, prompting then Texas Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson to use “New Deal” public works money to build the Tom Miller Dam.
Alabama-based AMS certified media meteorologist James Spann, host of the WeatherBrains podcast, also explained why cloud seeding didn’t cause the floods. “Cloud seeding can only enhance rain from existing clouds by up to 20%, it cannot create massive deluges,” he said.
“The flooding stemmed from a stalled weather system, bringing 10–20 inches of rain last Thursday and Friday … fueled by moisture from Tropical Storm Barry, Gulf air, and hill‐country geography notorious for flash floods. This is nothing new for the Guadalupe River.”
“The Texas floods were caused by natural weather dynamics – not human interference or weather modification efforts. It was not caused by Democrats or Republicans.”
Kentucky-based meteorologist Jim Caldwell also said that cloud seeding “doesn’t create clouds or storms; it just enhances what’s already there. It doesn’t add extra moisture to the sky, so it doesn’t cause flooding. Rainfall increases are small and carefully monitored to avoid any risk.”
They also called on people promoting the “cloud seeding conspiracy theory” to stop, show compassion for families whose loved ones have died, and to consider ways to help.
“Put the political rhetoric and nonsense conspiracy stuff aside for a while,” Spann said. “Let these poor families grieve. Consider empathy and kindness.”
