CHINA:CHINA'S CUNNING multibillion-euro plan to manipulate the Olympic weather seems to be yielding results.
The rain that drenched the capital, Beijing, on Sunday should have fallen on Friday night, but Olympic organisers fired 1,110 rockets into the evening sky to ensure the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony was precipitation-free.
It has become a tradition in Beijing to seed the clouds before public holidays, such as National Day on October 1st, to make rain, disperse pollution and ensure clear skies.
But for the purposes of the opening ceremony, it was all about rain dispersal - about bringing on a downpour, but not on the Olympic stadium.
This was a real challenge.
Friday saw the biggest rain dispersal efforts yet, as the "weather changers" began firing rockets from a battery of artillery into the clouds above Beijing four hours before the opening ceremony. They continued firing them until 11.40pm, shortly before the finale.
Zhang Qiang, deputy director of the Beijing Weather Modification Office, told of the long barrage of rockets to keep the rain away from the Bird's Nest Olympic stadium, which originally had a roof but which was removed from the design because of a sharp rise in steel prices a couple of years ago.
Ms Zhang insisted there was no environmental danger from using silver iodide to disperse rain and clouds. She said there was only one gram of the chemical per square kilometre, which was a safe level for people.
The rockets were fired from 21 sites across the city, intercepting a potentially disruptive rainbelt and triggering premature showers before they reached the capital.
And it worked. The rain held off, even though August is the rainy season in normally tinder-dry Beijing.
Baoding city, southwest of Beijing, received about 100mm of rain on Friday night.
Olympic organisers have made no secret of their plans to blast any dark, ominous clouds with rockets to ensure only blue skies greet the world's athletes for the games.
Weather modification is an important government department, employing almost 40,000 people, 3,000 of whom work with an arsenal of 7,000 cannon and 4,687 rocket launchers.
They have a budget of €65 million, but money is no object when it comes to controlling the Olympic weather. And the government has spent billions developing a weather modification programme.
Controlling the rain can also prove useful in helping to disperse pollution during the games - the organisers plan to generate rain to clear smog if necessary.
However, Wang Jiangjie, deputy head of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, said the rain that dampened the capital on Sunday was not a result of artificial interference.