Saudi Arabia said it has launched a cloud-seeding programme with the first batch of flights over the regions of Riyadh, Qassim and Hail.
The minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture and chairman of the board of directors of the National Centre of Meteorology, Abdul Rahman Al Fadhli, announced the programme on Tuesday.
Cloud seeding is a method used to induce more rain from a cloud by shooting a salt flare into the cloud.
Salt naturally attracts water, the water particles then collide with others, get bigger and hopefully fall as rain.
The kingdom's cloud-seeding programme aims to increase rainfall in the country.
The Council of Ministers approved the artificial seeding project recently in an effort to increase the amount of rainfall in the Kingdom, one of the driest countries in the world, which currently stands at less that 100 millimetres a year.
The cloud-seeding programme is one of the outcomes of the Middle East Green Initiative Summit announced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last year, in accordance with the kingdom's Vision 2030.
