Debunked: Fatal floods in Texas spark false claims of weather manipulation amid political blame

The Journal

8 hours ago

FLASH FLOODS IN Texas last week that killed more than 100 people have been blamed, without evidence, on intentional weather manipulation.
State authorities said that
dozens of people were killed
in the disaster, including campers and councillors who died when floods hit a Christian summer camp.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said this week that dozens more people are unaccounted for, and he warned that another bout of heavy rain could cause even more dangerous flooding in the region.
Authorities have faced questions about whether enough warnings were issued in an area that has long been vulnerable to flooding, and whether enough preparations were made.
However, among accusations of unpreparedness, a familiar and more sinister claim has resurfaced: that the storms that caused the floods were purposely created using weather-manipulation technology.
'Texas extreme floods were not natural,' one such claim shared on Facebook by an Irish user from 6 July reads.
The post includes an image of a bureaucratic form from The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a US agency responsible for predicting the weather as well as for some environmental regulation.
The same image of a form also appeared in American posts that claimed this was proof that the floods were caused by weather manipulation, viewed tens of thousands of times on Facebook.
The form appears to show a company called Rainmaker Technology outlining a 'rain enhancement' and 'hail suppression' project.
The form shown in the post
The full version of the form is available online and confirms that it is, in fact, a form used to report on weather modification activities.
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The completed form on the Facebook post shows that these activities were expected to take place from March to October 2025.
But does this screenshot prove that the flash floods in Texas were man-made? No.
For one thing, the area where the form says 'rain enhancement' was being undertaken is named as the Trans Pecos Wildlife Management Area in Far West Texas, which is hundreds of kilometres from where last weekend's flooding occurred.
Weather reports
for that arid and sparsely populated region show small amounts of rainfall for July.
Meanwhile, firefighters from the city of El Paso, where most of the population of Far West Texas lives, have
been sent
to Central Texas to help
manage the disasters
there.
Rainmaker Technology is a
startup
that uses cloud-seeding technology over drought-stricken areas.
This involves planes
releasing silver iodide
(AgI), a harmless and naturally occurring substance, from planes in the hope of producing raindrops, often over arid regions, or sometimes above ski resorts hoping to encourage snowfall.
In either case, the technology's efficacy
is questionable
, with positive studies showing up to a
20 percent
increase in rainfall — nothing close to the more than
half-metre
of rain that fell in some areas of Central Texas in the last few days.
Unusual and extreme weather events are common targets of conspiracy theories.
Earlier this year, an unfounded claim spread that claimed a red weather warning issued in Ireland for Storm Éowyn was a '
climate lockdown
' designed to remove civil liberties.
With reporting from Press Association.
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