Plausibility of Cloud Seeding for Chemical and Nuclear Release Localization?

Delta Force

Banned
Cloud seeding involves the use of chemicals to increase precipitation. It has been used effectively for agricultural purposes, and for military purposes as part of Operation Popeye during the Vietnam War. Could cloud seeding also be used to localize the impacts of a chemical or nuclear test, incident, or attack?
 

nbcman

Donor
Most chemical agents are either diluted or break down when exposed to water. The rain would both reduce the effectiveness and spread the contamination. So in most cases, the chemical attack would be less effective and less localized.

For nukes, the radioactive debris (fallout) would concentrate closer to the attack / explosion site due to the rain. But who knows what the combined effect of cloud seeding and a multi-megaton device exploding at the same time would have on precipitation patterns.
 
I've seen a mention that Plowshare was thinking about it, but nothing more then a mention. And I think the Soviets did try to use cloud-seeding after Chernobyl.
 

Delta Force

Banned
There are allegations that the Soviets seeded clouds over Belarus to prevent the fallout from reaching Moscow (story here). Could this explain the fallout patterns seen, namely the huge amount of Cesium contamination hundreds of kilometers away from Chernobyl (map from here)? If that did happen and they had started as soon as possible instead of two days later, might the fallout have been more localized?

970px-Chernobyl_radiation_map_1996.svg.png
 
There are allegations that the Soviets seeded clouds over Belarus to prevent the fallout from reaching Moscow (story here). Could this explain the fallout patterns seen, namely the huge amount of Cesium contamination hundreds of kilometers away from Chernobyl (map from here)? If that did happen and they had started as soon as possible instead of two days later, might the fallout have been more localized?

The thing about cloud-seeding is, as far as I can tell, nobody's really sure if it actually works or not...
 
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