Operation Umbrella - 1965 • Zero Geoengineering

Weather Modification | The Canadian Encyclopedia | 7 February 2006

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In 1959 one of the first of a series of international statistical rainmaking experiments was mounted by the federal government in northeastern Ontario and northwestern Québec using aircraft to seed clouds with silver iodide. The outcome of this 4-year experiment on large-scale storm systems was an overall small decrease in rainfall. The decrease was not statistically significant and could have been the result of chance.

However, an operational rainmaking project in the Lac Saint-Jean area, Qué, was perceived by residents as having been very successful – so successful, in fact, that “Operation Umbrella” was mounted and mothers petitioned the Québec government for vitamins for their children because of lack of sunshine. In 1965 the Québec minister of natural resources ordered all rainmaking activities in the province to cease.

In general, rainmaking declined throughout Canada during the 1960s. The exception was Alberta, where the interest in weather modification remained high and operational and research projects to suppress hail and increase rainfall continued into the 1980s.