Honduras uses cloud seeding to combat severe drought

Summarised from 2 outlets · Updated 21 Oct, 17:08 · Archive

Honduras is using cloud seeding to try to induce rain and help farmers survive a devastating drought linked to El Niño.

The Honduran government is conducting cloud seeding missions over parched farmland in the hope of inducing rainfall to help farmers survive a prolonged drought. Pilots fly aircraft over the mountains spraying silver iodide particles into clouds with the aim of producing enough rain to protect crops and farming livelihoods.

The El Niño climate pattern, exacerbated by warming seas, has devastated communities across the Central American Dry Corridor, an arid region stretching from southern Mexico through Panama. The drought has been particularly acute in the dry forests of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua, where corn and bean crops have dried up, leaving subsistence farmers without food. Livestock have either died or been sold off, coffee plantations have withered and shrimp farms have lost production.

Cloud seeding represents a controversial attempt by the Honduran authorities to intervene in weather patterns to protect their agricultural economy and the livelihoods of the region's farmers as the drought persists.

How it is being reported

• In Honduras, hard hit by drought, authorities hope to make it rain using contentious tacticGlobal warming is making the El Niño weather pattern stronger, and that’s prolonging a devastating drought across a region of Central America known as the Dry Corridor.News4Jax · 21 Oct, 16:30
• In Honduras, hard hit by drought, authorities hope to make it rain using contentious tacticGlobal warming is making the El Niño weather pattern stronger, and that’s prolonging a devastating drought across a region of Central America known as the Dry Corridor.Clickorlando · 21 Oct, 16:30

In this story: Honduras · Guatemala · El Salvador · Nicaragua · Mexico · Panama · Victor Torres

This summary was written by AI from the headlines and standfirsts above, and states as fact only what at least two outlets report. How we use AI · Report a problem