Once he got started, a huge rainstorm hit not the city, but the surrounding countryside with 20 inches of rain, killing 17 people and causing millions of dollars in damage. Though no one seriously believes he caused it, the city blamed Hatfield and never paid him. On a winter day in 1946, Vincent Schaefer of General Electric dumped a few pounds of dry ice from a plane into a cloud over Massachusetts to induce snow. A few flakes of snow fell from the cloud, but disappeared before hitting the ground. Cloud seeding begins with a normal cloud, which is made of millions of tiny water droplets, too small for raindrops.
Dry ice provides particles that the droplets can attach to and get bigger, forming raindrops.
In theory, the dry ice would sap the energy out of a hurricane by making it rain harder and faster. The theory continues to be debated. William Cotton, professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State Univeristy, said Langmuir and Schaefer were far too optimistic about their work. But Raymond Falconer, a retired professor of atmospheric sciences at the State University at Albany, disagreed. Falconer, who worked alongside Schaefer and Langmuir in the '40s, said Langmuir's addition of dry ice did have an effect on the hurricane.