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

The “water cycle” we learned about in elementary school is very slow. It would need a climate changing increase in energy to get enough moisture into the right part of the atmosphere to increase continental rainfall enough to make a difference, and THAT would have significant unwanted effects.