“Currently, the susceptible region has increased in size; and tornadic activity has also increased worldwide, as will be demonstrated in the following description. One outcome of the Eglin-funded research activity was a proposed focus on a role for intra-cloud (IC) lightning in tornadogenesis [11,12]. During the same period, the US National Academies had published a report in which attention was directed to a list of critical concerns in weather modification research among which items were ‘cloud modeling issues’ such as ‘predictive models for severe weather events’ and cloud model capability to track dispersion of seeding material both within and outside of seeded areas [13]. A later USNA outcome was the current federally-funded 2009-2017 VORTEX2 program ‘to find previously unknown indications that a tornado will soon form’ with report that the ‘results could go beyond tornado forecasting’ 14].”