Eli5 Why can’t we just create rain clouds for the western half of the U.S. that is going through a drought?

Question

I’ve heard of the term cloud seeding. Why can’t we create rain clouds and position them in the parts of the US that are going through droughts? It’s not like the water is disappearing from earth, it’s just displacing in other parts of the world

In: 10

Answer 1

TL;DR: “Cloud seeding” should actually be called “rain seeding” because various technologies cause existing clouds to rain. They don’t actually create the clouds.