We Could Use A Laser

Via Yglesias, the Guardian tells about Swiss scientists trying to use lasers to cause rain:

Ever since ancient farmers called on the gods to send rain to save their harvests, humans have longed to have the weather at their command.

That dream has now received a boost after researchers used a powerful laser to produce water droplets in the air, a step that could ultimately help trigger rainfall.
While nothing can produce a downpour from dry air, the technique, called laser-assisted water condensation, might allow some control over where and when rain falls if the atmosphere is sufficiently humid.

Researchers demonstrated the technique in field tests after hauling a mobile laser laboratory the size of a small garage to the banks of the Rhône near lake Geneva in Switzerland.

Records from 133 hours of firings revealed that intense pulses of laser light created nitric acid particles in the air that behaved like atmospheric glue, binding water molecules together into droplets and preventing them from re-evaporating.
Within seconds, these grew into stable drops a few thousandths of a millimetre in diameter: too small to fall as rain, but large enough to encourage the scientists to press on with the work.

"We have not yet generated raindrops – they are too small and too light to fall as rain. To get rain, we will need particles a hundred times the size, so they are heavy enough to fall," said Jérôme Kasparian, a physicist at the University of Geneva. A report on the tests appears in the journal Nature Communications.

With improvements, shooting lasers into the sky could either help trigger or prevent showers. One possibility might be to create water droplets in air masses drifting towards mountains. The air would cool as it rose over these, causing the water droplets to grow and eventually fall.

I'm not for toying with the weather, but as dry as it's been, this does sound intriguing right now.  I would imagine folks in Texas would be all over this.  Of course, these experiments have been going on for years, and we are still at the mercy of Mother Nature.