Rain enhancement · Patented dual-mechanism system

More water from the clouds you already have.

RainMaker® acts on both mechanisms by which rain forms — ice nucleation in cold cloud and collision–coalescence in warm cloud. We hold the patent, we manufacture the agent, and we fly the operation. You pay per operation, and only when it worked.

Request a technical briefing How the guarantee works

We hold the patent. We manufacture the agent. We run the operation.

This industry is normally split between whoever makes the seeding material and whoever flies it. PyR Surge Systems does both — one accountable party for the whole programme, and no supply chain between the science and the aircraft.

Years delivering the full operation, end to end.

Agent in use since 2021

80+

Operations flown by our own technical command.

Integrated service

18–48%

Increase in precipitation over treated polygons.

CONAZA programme 2021–2022 · 300+ interventions · 31,000 L

90%+

Accuracy locating seedable systems in time and space.

Measured across our operations

Two distinct records. The 2021–2022 figures cover RainMaker® applied under the Mexican government programme with CONAZA, where PyR supplied the agent. The operational record covers the interventions PyR has conducted directly as an integrated service.

What rain enhancement does

It does not make weather. It makes a cloud work harder.

Of all the water a cloud holds, only a fraction ever reaches the ground — typically under a fifth of its condensed moisture. Rain enhancement operates inside that margin. It has three measurable objectives.

Grow the cell

Condensation and crystallisation release latent heat inside the cloud, which drives further vertical development.

Extend its life

A cloud that lasts longer has more opportunity to discharge the water it is already carrying.

Raise precipitation efficiency

Increase the share of the cloud's condensed water that actually reaches the ground.

A programme, not an emergency measure

There is no worse strategy against drought than starting during the dry period. Seeding cannot work without clouds that already have precipitation potential, and those are scarcest exactly when they are most needed. Programmes that run continuously accumulate soil moisture, recharge aquifers and fill reservoirs across seasons. Switching one on during a drought and cancelling it in a wet year is precisely backwards — wet years are when a programme banks the most water.

One piece, not the whole answer

Rain enhancement alone does not solve water scarcity, and we do not present it as if it did. It works alongside storage infrastructure, maintenance of existing works, irrigation modernisation, and conservation tillage that raises soil water retention. What it does uniquely is address the starting condition the others depend on: having the water in the first place.

Who a programme is for

Agriculture & irrigation districts

Rainfed regions and irrigation districts whose season depends on rainfall that is no longer reliable.

Livestock & agribusiness

Pasture productivity and supply continuity where forage and water availability set the ceiling.

Governments & basin authorities

State and national water authorities managing reservoir storage and aquifer recharge.

Mining, industry & hydro

Operations with water obligations, and hydroelectric operators managing reservoir inflow.

What makes RainMaker different

Precipitation forms by two mechanisms. Most agents address only one.

Silver iodide begins to nucleate ice at relatively warm temperatures — around −3 to −4 °C. But the share of particles that actually produce ice at that end of the range is very small: in seeding trials conducted in natural clouds between −5.1 and −8.3 °C, the measured ice-nucleated fraction of AgI-containing particles was between 0.07% and 1.63%. Efficiency improves as the cloud gets colder. Above 0 °C it does nothing at all.

In arid regions a large share of the exploitable liquid water sits outside that useful band — below the freezing level, in warm cloud. Hygroscopic salts reach that region, but only that region, and they arrive as a second product and a second decision in flight.

Conventional agents — one mechanism eachRainMaker® system — both mechanisms, one operation

Two actives, selected per operation

RainMaker® generates ice-nucleating surfaces in the supercooled portion of a cloud. RainMaker HG® lowers droplet surface tension to drive collision–coalescence in warm cloud. Depending on the forecast, the cloud type and the conditions at seeding height, the cloud seeding specialist applies one, the other, or both in a chosen proportion — within a single operation, from a single system. This is dosing matched to the cloud, not one formulation for every case.

Released cold, not burned

Conventional agents create their active nuclei by sublimation — burning a flare or a pyrotechnic charge. RainMaker® generates them by high-pressure cold atomization at ambient temperature, in droplets of 10 to 100 microns. That is what makes dual action possible: burning an agent commits it to a single mechanism. It also means no pyrotechnics on board, no explosive classification, no magazine storage, and dose metered in litres and logged per pass rather than committed one whole flare at a time.

Measured against the published record

The U.S. Government Accountability Office reviewed the effectiveness literature and found that estimates of additional precipitation from cloud seeding ranged from 0 to 20 percent. Idaho's state programme, one of the longest-running operational programmes in the United States, reports about a 10% average annual increase in snowpack.

Published range, all methodsUS GAO-25-107328 · 2024

0–20%

Idaho state programmeSnowpack · IDWR

~10%

RainMaker®, CONAZA programmePrecipitation · 2021–2022

18–48%

All three figures are increases in precipitation, so they are directly comparable. Our lower bound sits at the upper bound of the range the GAO found across the published literature. Sources: GAO-25-107328 · Idaho Department of Water Resources.

Technique by technique

	AgI flares	Hygroscopic flares	Ground generators	RainMaker®
Mechanism covered	Ice nucleation only	Coalescence only	Ice nucleation only	Both
Useful temperature band	Cold cloud; yield rises as it gets colder	Above 0 °C only	Cold cloud, orographic lift required	Cold and warm cloud
How nuclei are generated	Sublimation by combustion	Sublimation by combustion	Combustion at ground level	Cold atomization, 10–100 µm
Dose control	One whole flare at a time	One whole flare at a time	Continuous burn rate	Metered in litres, logged per pass
Handling & logistics	Pyrotechnic classification	Pyrotechnic classification	Fixed sites, permitting per site	Non-pyrotechnic liquid
Targeting	Airborne, targeted	Airborne, targeted	Depends on wind carrying the plume up	Airborne, cell-specific

WO 2022/225386

Patent granted in Mexico in 2025, from an international application published under the Patent Cooperation Treaty on 27 October 2022 with priority from 21 April 2021. Additional national phases are in process. The technology was awarded third place in patents at Innotech Taiwan 2025. View the published application →

Being precise

What RainMaker cannot do

Create clouds where there are none.

Move clouds, or steer rain to a chosen point.

Produce rain when no cloud with precipitation potential is present.

Add meaningful rainfall in intense storms, which are already efficient.

These are limits of the physics, not of our formulation. They apply to every nucleating agent on the market, ours included. Rain enhancement raises the precipitation efficiency of a cloud that was already going to rain. A programme built on that understanding is the only kind that holds up over years.

The operation

How a seeding operation is conducted.

An effective intervention requires four conditions in order of importance: a cloud with the necessary moisture and droplet structure; an active ingredient that supplies nuclei of adequate efficacy for the conditions present; the instruments and qualified personnel to identify which cells will respond; and an application technique capable of placing those nuclei precisely. The following sequence governs every mission.

Target polygons

Defined jointly by the funding authority, the beneficiaries and the technical teams. Typically reservoirs and catchments, rainfed agricultural districts, and areas of high wildfire incidence.

Meteorological watch

A technical operations command monitors forecasts, satellite imagery, radar and radiosonde data continuously, with local teams corroborating conditions visually on the ground.

Seedability Index

Candidate systems are scored against defined parameters — cell lifetime, liquid water and crystal concentration, temperature and height, vertical development, colloidal instability. Only systems that score are put forward.

Seeding order & flight

A seeding order sets the strategy, flight plan, active selection and application plan, with abort criteria defined in advance. The local technician and the pilot must both endorse it before authorisation.

Logging & report

GPS track, application points, volume applied, cloud types treated and visual observations are recorded, then submitted for evaluation.

Application system

Tank: 125 L stainless steel, operated at 80%
Pump: Brushless, 24 VDC — no spark risk
Nozzle: 7-outlet fogging type, 10–100 µm droplets
Control: PLC with HMI panel, flow meter, level sensor
Dosing: Semi-automated; set volume, start, auto-stop

Aircraft profile

Useful load: 2,000–2,400 lb
Service ceiling: 25,000 ft is sufficient
Endurance: 4.75 h including reserve
Powerplant: Turbocharged piston twin preferred
Equipment: IFR, weather radar, anti-ice / de-ice

Crew requirements

Pilot hours: 2,000 min., of which 500 IFR
On type: 200 h min. on the selected aircraft
Training: CRM / human factors, weather radar
Technician: Cloud Seeding Technician, 100 h min.
Authority: Pilot and technician share authority to abort

Evaluation

Measurement is the weakest link in this industry. We use two methods that answer different questions.

Establishing cause and effect between a seeding pass and the rain that follows is genuinely hard, and it is the reason cloud seeding attracts scepticism. Rather than pick one method and present it as definitive, we run the accepted radar standard where the infrastructure exists, and a satellite method built on public data everywhere else.

Method 1 · Radar

“Did the cell we seeded behave differently from comparable cells we did not seed?”

Doppler radar volume scans are processed through TITAN, the method the field already accepts. The software reconstructs the three-dimensional structure of each echo and tracks it over time, so treated cells can be compared against untreated control cells drawn from the same radar database. This is the only method that isolates the differential effect of the intervention itself.

Answers: Differential effect on the treated cell
Requires: S-band Doppler radar within 150 km, with raw data access
Status: Applied wherever coverage exists

Method 2 · Satellite

“Did more rain fall over the polygon than the forecast said would fall?”

Before the operation, the expected rainfall over the target polygon is taken from NASA's AIRS atmospheric sounder. After it, the rainfall that actually occurred is measured from NASA–JAXA GPM-IMERG precipitation retrievals, on a grid of roughly 11 × 11 km updated every 30 minutes. The difference between the two, inside the polygon and inside the operation's time window, is the result. Both datasets are public.

Answers: Deviation from forecast over the target area
Requires: No additional infrastructure
Status: In operational use; sample of radar cross-checks expanding

What a satellite evaluation looks like

A representative result from field operations: the AIRS forecast for the target polygon indicated 0–5 mm. Point rainfall measured over the polygon after the intervention was 10–15 mm.

Dashed outline = target polygon. Grid = IMERG cells, approx. 11 × 11 km.

Calibration nodes

Satellite precipitation estimates need ground truth. We install calibration nodes — clusters of rain gauges on the ground, inside and outside the target polygons — that establish the relationship between what the satellites report and what actually fell. We propose at least one node per target basin. This is what turns a global dataset into a locally accurate measurement.

The inputs are public

The standing criticism of this industry is that the company being paid is also the company doing the measuring. Building the satellite method on open NASA and NASA–JAXA data is how we answer that: the result can be reproduced by any third party without going through us. A first cross-check of the satellite method against TITAN has been completed, and we are expanding that sample as more operations are flown within radar coverage.

The guarantee

No Rain, No Pay

In this service we make almost every decision: which system has potential, when to take off, where and how much to apply. And then we measure the result. That is a comfortable position for the supplier.

The guarantee exists to correct that imbalance. If we are the ones deciding when to fly, then we should be the ones carrying the risk of having decided wrong — not the client. An operation that does not clear the threshold is not invoiced.

It also changes what we are incentivised to do. A supplier paid per flight has a reason to fly. A supplier paid per result has a reason to say no on a marginal day — which is exactly the judgement a client is buying.

Threshold: 10 hm³ of rainfall above the AIRS satellite forecast
Scope: Within the zone and range of that operation
If not met: That operation is not charged
Reference: 1 hm³ = one billion litres, the unit used by CONAGUA
Context: Average precipitation per event under the 2021 SADER/CONAZA programme was 180 hm³ over polygons of about 100,000 ha. The threshold is a floor below which an operation clearly did not work — not a target.

How we are engaged

We sell operations, not flight hours.

The commercial unit is a single seeding operation with everything included — meteorological watch, seedability scoring, aircraft and crew, the active ingredient, application, logging and satellite evaluation. Not hours flown. Not litres applied. One operation, one price, evaluated. Institutions that prefer to build the capability internally can license the technology instead.

Unit operations

For institutions that require the outcome without establishing an aviation capability. Priced per operation, subject to the No Rain, No Pay guarantee.

Target polygon definition with the funding authority and beneficiaries
Continuous meteorological watch and Seedability Index scoring
Aircraft, crew, ground support and the active ingredient
Calibration node installation and satellite evaluation per operation
Season reporting

Licence & technology transfer

For governments and operators developing the capability within their own institution. The client operates the programme; PyR Surge Systems supplies the actives, the equipment specification and the training.

Supply of RainMaker® and RainMaker HG® under use licence, with full traceability
Application system specified and built for your aircraft, with calibration procedure
Cloud seeding technician training and certification
Flight and application protocols, seeding order format, in-flight logging
Transfer of the evaluation methodology and calibration node design

Environmental & health safety

Harmless to people, soil and water — and the arithmetic is public.

Concern about seeding chemistry is legitimate and deserves a specific answer rather than reassurance. Three facts settle it.

Silver iodide is not the silver ion

The silver ion (Ag⁺) does carry toxicity — which is why it is used as a disinfectant. Silver iodide (AgI) is a different substance: it is practically insoluble in water and in polar solvents, so it does not release silver ions into soil or groundwater. The concern that circulates about Ag⁺ does not transfer to AgI.

The quantities are minute

The active is dispersed over very large areas and diluted into very large volumes of precipitated water. The resulting contribution per unit of surface within a treated polygon is below the detection threshold of the instruments prescribed by Mexican official standards NOM-021-RECNAT-2000 for soil and NOM-127-SSA1-1994 for drinking water supply.

Nothing accumulates

Cumulative effects require repetition in the same place. Seeding polygons are not fixed — they follow whichever cloud passes over a wide region, from an aircraft rather than a fixed installation, so the probability of releasing over the same site year after year is very low. Ecological studies of AgI seeding programmes since the 1970s have found no negative effects on terrestrial or aquatic systems.

In context: concentration in precipitated water

Substance	Concentration (mg/L)
Arsenic (As⁺)	0.018
Silver ion (Ag⁺)	0.010
Lead (Pb⁺⁺)	0.010
Mercury (Hg⁺)	0.001
Silver iodide from RainMaker®	0.0000022

The first four rows are reference limits for water quality. The estimated concentration of silver iodide contributed by a RainMaker® operation is roughly four thousand times lower than the reference limit for the silver ion — and it is contributed as an insoluble salt that does not release that ion. The full stoichiometric calculation is available in our technical dossier on request.

Track record

Developed, flown and reported on — in public programmes.

Mexico classifies roughly three quarters of its territory as arid, and around 78% of its agriculture and livestock depend on seasonal rainfall. That is the environment RainMaker was built in and tested against.

Arid cracked ground in a drought-affected region — Arid zone · rainfed agriculture

2015–2019

Formulation developed

A chemistry team led by Eng. Manuel Mustieles Ibarra set out to build an agent able to modify natural aerosol both above and below the freezing point. The cold-atomization application method was developed in parallel by Eng. Adalberto Martín Mustieles Ibarra.

2021–2022

RainMaker® enters government service

After efficacy testing in Ensenada, Baja California with CONAZA, RainMaker® was applied under the national rain stimulation programme: more than 300 seeding interventions and 31,000 litres across stratiform and convective systems in all four seasons, with an 18–48% increase in precipitation over treated polygons. In this period PyR supplied the active ingredient to the contractors flying the operations.

2022

From supplier to operator

PyR Surge Systems began delivering the complete operation itself — meteorological command, flight planning, application and evaluation — rather than supplying the agent to third parties.

2025

Patent granted and internationally recognised

The patent was granted in Mexico, from the international application published under the PCT in October 2022. The technology took third place in patents at Innotech Taiwan 2025.

2023–2026

State and regional programmes

Multi-year rain stimulation service contracts with Mexican public entities, including the Comarca Lagunera programme spanning Coahuila and Durango — two of the country's most water-stressed agricultural regions.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

01Is this geoengineering?

No. Geoengineering means deliberate, large-scale intervention in the Earth's climate system — for example, reflecting sunlight to lower global temperature. Rain enhancement does something much smaller and much more local: it raises the precipitation efficiency of individual clouds that were already going to rain, over a defined target area, for a few hours. The technique has been in operational use for roughly 80 years in more than 50 countries. It does not alter the climate system and is not designed to.

02Does seeding take rain away from the next region?

A cloud releases only a small fraction of the water it holds — typically under one fifth of its condensed moisture reaches the ground. Seeding works inside that margin: it helps a cloud precipitate more of what it is already carrying, rather than redistributing a fixed quantity between neighbours. Air masses also continue to draw moisture as they travel.

In shared or transboundary basins we recommend that the calibration network include gauges outside the target polygons, precisely so this question can be examined with data rather than assumed either way.

03Is the water safe to drink afterwards?

Yes. See the safety section above for the figures: the active salt is silver iodide, which is not the silver ion and is practically insoluble; the quantities are dispersed over very large areas; and the resulting concentration is below the detection threshold of the instruments prescribed by the applicable Mexican official standards for soil and drinking water. The full stoichiometric analysis is available on request.

04How is RainMaker different from silver iodide flares?

Two differences, and only one is about format. The substantive one: flares generate ice nuclei only, so they are useful only in the supercooled portion of a cloud, and their yield is low at the warm end of that range. The RainMaker® system covers both mechanisms, so warm cloud — and the warm portion of any convective cloud — remains workable.

The second follows from the first: because RainMaker® is not burned, it is not committed one flare at a time, it carries no pyrotechnic classification, and dose is metered in litres and logged per pass.

05What exactly am I paying for?

A seeding operation, complete. That includes the meteorological watch that identified the system, the seedability assessment, the aircraft and crew, the active ingredients, the application itself, the flight logging, and the satellite evaluation of the result. Not flight hours, not litres of product. If the operation does not clear the guarantee threshold, it is not invoiced.

06How much additional rainfall can we expect?

It depends on the cloud, and any supplier offering a single figure without qualification is overstating the case. Under the 2021–2022 government programme, increases in precipitation over treated polygons ranged from 18% to 48%, varying with cloud type, season and atmospheric conditions. For reference, the U.S. GAO found published estimates across all cloud seeding methods ranging from 0 to 20 percent.

The more useful way to think about a programme is cumulative: individual events produce moderate, bounded gains, and it is the accumulation across seasons that recharges aquifers, fills reservoirs and raises soil moisture.

07Who decides when to fly — and who checks the result?

We do, on both counts, and we are explicit that this is an uncomfortable arrangement for a client. Our technical operations command scores candidate systems against the Seedability Index and issues the seeding order; the local technician and pilot must both endorse it. The result is then evaluated by our own methodology.

Two things are designed to offset that. The satellite evaluation runs on public NASA and NASA–JAXA datasets, so a client or a third party can reproduce the calculation independently. And the guarantee means a decision to fly that turns out wrong is carried by us, not billed to the client.

08Do we need to buy new aircraft?

Normally no. The application system is designed and anchored to the specific airframe, so a suitable existing aircraft can be equipped. What matters is the profile: adequate useful load, a service ceiling around 25,000 ft, roughly 4.75 hours endurance including reserve, pressurised cabin or supplemental oxygen, IFR equipment, on-board weather radar, and anti-ice and de-ice systems. Turbocharged piston twins are generally preferred for their responsiveness.

09Can seeding cause flooding?

Seeding raises the precipitation efficiency of a cloud within its existing capacity; it does not add water to the atmosphere or amplify a storm system. Operationally we do not seed intense storms — they are already efficient, so there is nothing to gain, and the flight risk is unacceptable. Abort criteria are defined before every mission and the on-board technician and pilot share authority to end an intervention.

10How long before a programme shows results?

Per-event effects are measurable within the season. Basin-level effects — reservoir storage, soil moisture, aquifer recharge — accumulate over years. The single most common way these programmes fail is being switched on during a drought and cancelled the moment a wet year arrives, which is exactly backwards: wet years offer more seedable systems and are when a programme banks the most water.

11Can the technology be licensed without the service?

Yes. Supply of the actives under use licence, together with the application equipment, technician training and the evaluation methodology, is available as a standalone track. The licence carries a traceability obligation: the licensee declares where and when each intervention took place, which protects the integrity of the product and the client's own record of what was applied.

12What happens on a day with no seedable systems?

Nothing flies, and nothing is charged. This is the direct consequence of selling operations rather than flight hours: there is no commercial reason to launch a mission with a low Seedability Index, and a strong reason not to. Over a season, the days we decline to fly matter as much to the result as the days we do.

Get in touch

Begin with a technical conversation.

The first exchange is technical rather than commercial: the character of your season, the cloud types your region receives, the evaluation infrastructure available, and whether a program is warranted at all. If it is not, we will say so.

Ask for the technical dossier

Company: PyR Surge Systems, S.A. de C.V.
Office: Privada de los Cedros 82C
Álvaro Obregón, 01720
Mexico City, Mexico
Email: contacto@rainmaker.com.mx
Languages: English · Spanish