In the midst of historic drought in the Rocky Mountains, many water managers are looking for ways to get more moisture into the environment.
Some are considering things like cloud seeding, which is meant to create more precipitation in certain areas. It’s a technique that has been used for decades in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.
Rain Enhancement Technologies, a company that’s operated in Oman, doesn’t use traditional cloud-seeding methods, which are characterized by putting silver iodide particles into the atmosphere. Instead, they do what they call “ionization cloud seeding,” which uses high-voltage rays to ionize naturally occurring aerosols in the atmosphere. Aerosols are necessary for cloud formation, and therefore, precipitation.
“I kind of describe it as being the grain of sand in the oyster,” said Scott Morris, the company’s chief technical officer. “If the atmosphere is the oyster, the pearl that forms around that grain of sand is the cloud.”
“So we take the naturally occurring aerosols, we give them a little bit of a spice up, and then let them go up to the cloud layer.”
Morris said Rain Enhancement Technologies’ approach is unique because their strategy allows them to boost precipitation year-round—not just in the winter, as is typically the case for traditional cloud seeding.
“Doing warm cloud enhancement is something that is an issue for silver iodide systems,” Morris said. “They require a lower cloud temperature, below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, to operate effectively. We don't need those limitations. We can operate at significantly higher atmospheric temperatures.”
Currently, RET has two projects in the Mountain West: one targeting farmland in Weld County, Colorado, and another in the La Sal Mountains in Utah, southwest of Moab.
The La Sals project is a 12-month pilot, funded entirely by Rain Enhancement Technologies. The Utah Department of Natural Resources vetted the company and its staff and issued the necessary permits for the project to go ahead. RET is providing the agency monthly updates on its operations.
So far, Morris said the results have been promising. In January, RET’s meteorologists reported 3.5 inches of additional snowpack in the La Sal Mountains compared to a control site in the nearby Abajo Mountains, which it says exceeded historical patterns for comparable dry years by more than 20%.
In addition, they’re reporting snow water equivalent (the amount of water stored in snowpack) increased by 2 inches.
"We're seeing more snow on this mountain range than we are on a neighboring mountain range that gets the same weather patterns," wrote Gary Wilson, chairman of the Grand Water and Sewer Service Agency in a statement.
“It’s still kind of early days for the data, but the early indicators based on that approach are very good,” Morris said. “Getting an extra two inches of water in a climatologically dry year has been pretty good.”
This year’s drought across the Mountain West has broken records, leading to concerns about water supplies in the Colorado River Basin come spring runoff.
Morris says they agreed to this pilot location with Utah’s Department of Natural Resources because of its proximity to the Colorado River.
“The gain from Utah DNR was to get more rainfall over summer months in particular, warmer months, so that we could enhance flow into the Colorado River as levels drop over the warmer months,” he said. “The La Sal area is a good watershed for that.”
The Utah DNR said it would like to see more data before it agrees to fund any further projects beyond this 12-month pilot. Utah runs a robust cloud-seeding program, which has been a source of great interest to other Western, drought-stricken states.
Copyright 2026 Rocky Mountain Community Radio. This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including Aspen Public Radio.
