Texas Flood Disaster: 81 Dead As Search Intensifies; Cloud Seeding Startup Denies Involvement

July 7, 2025

The flash flood that sent a 30-foot wall of water surging down the Guadalupe River in Central Texas has claimed at least 81 lives as of early Monday morning. Law enforcement officials in Kerr County confirmed that at least ten girls from Camp Mystic remain missing. Amid speculation that the so-called "1-in-1,000-year storm" may have been triggered by cloud seeding, one of the weather modification operators in the region has denied any flight operations during the relevant timeframe.

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Intense scrutiny has fallen on Rainmaker Technology, a California–based weather modification startup, amid speculation that cloud seeding may have contributed to the historic flooding.

CEO Augustus Doricko responded to baseless claims on X by saying, "Rainmaker did not operate in the affected area on the 3rd or 4th or contribute to the floods that occurred over the region."

Doricko continued:

Overnight from July 3rd - 4th, moisture surged into the Hill Country from the Pacific as remnants of Tropical Storm Barry moved across the region. At 1:00 a.m. on July 4th, the National Weather Service (NWS), which we work closely with to maintain awareness of severe weather systems, issued a flash flood warning for San Angelo, Texas. Note, summer convective cloud seeding operations in Texas do not occur during overnight hours. At 4:00 a.m. on July 4th, the NWS issued a life-threatening emergency warning, and flooding ensued.

Did Rainmaker conduct any operations that could have impacted the floods? No. The last seeding mission prior to the July 4th event was during the early afternoon of July 2nd, when a brief cloud seeding mission was flown over the eastern portions of south-central Texas, and two clouds were seeded. These clouds persisted for about two hours after seeding before dissipating between 3:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. CDT. Natural clouds typically have lifespans of 30 minutes to a few hours at most, with even the most persistent storm systems rarely maintaining the same cloud structure for more than 12-18 hours. The clouds that were seeded on July 2nd dissipated over 24 hours prior to the developing storm complex that would produce the flooding rainfall.

A senior meteorologist observed an unusually high moisture content prior to the event's arrival, using NWS sounding data. It was at this point that our meteorologists determined that we would suspend future operations indefinitely. As you can see, we suspended operations on July 2nd, a day before the NWS issued any flood warning.

https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/texas-flood-disaster-80-dead-search-intensifies-cloud-seeding-startup-denies-involvement

>>23289191

[If "Rainmaker" cloudseeding company claims to be accurate, measurable and scalable, what went wrong?]

"Traditional precipitation enhancement efforts struggled with operational flexibility and measuring impact due to past technological limitations. Recent advancements in drones, numerical weather modeling, and radar algorithms have transformed precipitation enhancement into a viable, scalable pursuit with demonstrable results. The time is now."

https://www.rainmaker.com/about

[CONTROL the water.]

Rainmaker Raises a $25 Million Series A Round

May 2025

Rainmaker, a cloud seeding startup based in El Segundo, announced in mid-May that it raised $25 million in series A funding. The round was led by Sawtelle-based Lowercarbon Capital and included participation from firms like Starship Ventures, Long Journey Ventures and 1517 Ventures.

Rainmaker uses drones to not only produce moisture, but to also prove that the rain was indeed caused by Rainmaker and not natural causes.

“If I fly a plane up into a cloud and sprinkle some magic beans and then it rains, that doesn’t mean that I caused the rain. You can’t attribute that rain to your intervention because maybe it happened naturally,” said Doricko. “…if you have the right kind of radar and you fly in a zigzag or in a circle, and you only see the precipitation in your flight track, you can definitively prove that it is perfectly co-located with our flight track. This is exclusively man-made precipitation.”

https://labusinessjournal.com/technology/rainmaker-raises-a-25-million-series-a-round/