As Sunday dawned grey and wet, flipping the tennis schedule into delays, there came official word that authorities did in fact do their utmost to keep the skies over Beijing dry on opening ceremony night. China Daily reported today that the city’s meteorological bureau carried out China’s biggest “rain dispersal operation” to save Zhang Yimou’s spectacular pageant from being washed out.

“We fired a total of 1,104 rain dispersal rockets from 21 sites in the city between 4 pm and 11.39 pm on (August 8), which prevented a rain belt from moving toward the stadium,” the met bureau chief told Beijing’s English language daily.

China has for decades maintained an ambitious programme for weather modification. While many scientists contest the efficacy of such measures, altering rainfall works two way: seeding the clouds (with, for instance, silver iodide) to cause droplets to form, perhaps carrying out the operation on clouds before they approach the area intended to be kept dry.

Or, by making sure there are so many seeds released that raindrops don’t individually become heavy enough to fall.

What about Ekecheiria?

As the Russian campaign in Georgia intensified, there were reports that the Georgian team could consider withdrawing from the Olympics. (Later, it was announced that they would stay). Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was in attendance at the opening ceremony and he visited Russian athletes at the Games Village to announce that every gold medalist would be awarded $150,000. Natalia Paderina will hopefully get at least a good fraction of that sum. The Russian won silver in women’s 10 m air pistol on Sunday, catching in an embrace the bronze medalist, Nino Salukvadze of Georgia. (The gold medal was taken by Wenjun Guo of China).

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