(#11) The San Diego Rainmaker
A drought-stricken San Diego needed help. A man claimed he could summon the rain. And he did.
“I do not make rain. That would be an absurd claim. I simply attract clouds, and they do the rest.” — Charles Hatfield
The fabled San Diego rainmaker. Via edaugusts.com
Southern California is in the midst of yet another “atmospheric river.” Rain has poured down on my home state for the past few months, and for once, it looks like we will emerge from our chronic drought conditions. Aquifers are filling by the moment. The Sierras have a snowpack for the recordbooks. The foothills are finally green, and the wildflowers are in full bloom as we enter Spring.
These days, or rather, these years, rain is an event for Californians. Rainy days have the feeling of an alternate reality, giving us a glimpse of what is otherwise a very normal occurrence in much of the world. People check their weather apps for any sign of rain in the upcoming week and will announce to their family and friends the exciting news that there is a 70% chance of rain, even if for a few hours, in a couple of days. Most Californians do not know how to live in a wet environment. Most of us don’t own or actively use umbrellas. In the rain, we drive much slower. We avoid the outdoors. Soccer games are cancelled. Plans are changed. We change what we eat, seeking “comfort foods,” and we use the rain as an excuse to not run errands. In a sense, life stops when the rain comes to California.
Despite its somewhat negative perception here, rain is essential for the survival of life on this planet. It is the primary mode by which water, so integral to our very existence, precipitates and nourishes the earth. In our urbanized-suburbanized way of life, it can be easy to forget the dire consequences of a prolonged absence of rain. Agricultural societies are well aware of the fact that a dry season is the first step to what could become famine and economic collapse. Even in our highly industrialized world, with all our advances in science and technology, we still cannot control the rain. It has eluded our grasp in our relentless pursuit of domination over the forces of nature. No one, and I mean no one, has been able to summon the rain with any kind of proprietary technology, no matter how sophisticated, period.
However…
In 1915, San Diego experienced severe drought conditions. The Morena Dam Reservoir, located in southern San Diego County near Mexico, was running at an alarmingly low level. Although said county bears the name of its largest city, it was and still is heavily agrarian. In order for the regional economy to survive and carry on, it would not only have to rain, but pour at record levels. Since conjuring rainclouds is not known for being an actionable policy move, there was not much local leadership could do to alleviate the drought situation.
That is, of course, unless you’re the San Diego City Council.
After experiencing pressure from the San Diego Wide Awake Improvement Club, the city council voted to approach an internationally known “professional rainmaker” with a desperate offer. This man had already been called to summon rain for the water-dependent mines of the Klondike goldfields and ranchers in La Crescenta. Now, it was San Diego’s turn for his services. The city council was willing to pay the rainmaker to open the skies and command the rain to fall upon the earth. Impressed by their offer, the man set to work, evaporating a secret mixture of 23 chemicals poured in tanks installed atop a tower.
Some doubted his claims, but soon enough, all naysayers were silenced. The rain had begun to fall.
In fact, so much rain fell that the city council had to beg the rainmaker to stop. Destructive flooding ravished San Diego, destroying bridges, farms, and homes and isolating trains. Multiple reservoirs either filled to capacity or overflowed. After experiencing chronically bone-dry conditions, San Diego now had destructive levels of water. In fact, the rain caused so much damage that a lengthy legal battle ensued over the city’s obligation to pay the rainmaker for his services.
This is the story of Charles Hatfield, the man who flooded San Diego. How did he summon the rain for drought-stricken San Diego? Is he legitimate, or is he a fraud?
The Art of Attracting Clouds
Pluviculture, or the study and practice of artificially inducing or summoning rain, is an ancient artform. Settled human society has always been concerned with producing a regular, predictable harvest. Humans, the religious beings that we are, have always emphasized the role of the divine in blessing the earth with rain. Anyone who prays, whether in ancient Babylon or modern Christianity, is somewhat of a pluviculturist.
However, pluviculture consisting in an intervention of technology is a comparatively new phenomenon. Cloud seeding has been studied and employed in earnest since the 1940s, when airborne technology began to experience rapid advancements and to be the subject of novel applications in war and industry. The way it works is conceptually simple.
Water droplets or ice crystals that have condensed around particles of dust or salt suspended in the atmosphere compose the massive clouds we see in the sky. The dust/salt serve as “ice nuclei,” without which raindrops and snowflakes could not form and precipitate. The aim of cloud seeding is to artificially introduce ice nuclei into already existing clouds so as to “fill” them to the point of inducing precipitation. This can be done from the air or from ground-based generators.
Does it work? Well, that’s controversial. From an experimental point of view, it is difficult, if not impossible, to study the efficacy of cloud seeding with a proper control group. In other words, how do we know that rain or snow would not have fallen without artificial intervention? How can we be sure that the exact same type and size of cloud would not have “burst” without being seeded? Practically speaking, if cloud seeding were so effective, then why hasn’t it been successfully deployed on a large-scale to solve the chronic drought problems in California and elsewhere? Wouldn’t governments and businesses invest heavily in this technology? Perhaps it is still in its infancy, but one would think that 80 years of study on a viable piece of weather-enhancing technology would yield some kind of practical application.
So, does this discount the story of Charles Hatfield? Well, this one is different in that so stark a change occurred with his intervention that it beckons our attention and interest. Perhaps Charles knew of some other way to introduce ice nuclei into the sky, one that has been overlooked or simply ignored by modern science. After all, just because something is new or at least modern does not mean that it is correct. The timing of a discovery or conclusion does not guarantee its accuracy or lack thereof. Charles had a reputation of being able to produce rain in his heyday. His notoriety is worth our consideration.
The Man, the Myth, the Legend
Charles Hatfield was originally from Kansas, but during his childhood in the 1880s, he moved to Southern California. As he entered adulthood, Charles began to dabble in pluviculture. After years of experimentation, he devised his method consisting of evaporating a mixture of 23 chemicals placed atop a tower. According to Charles, the chemicals did not “make” rain so much as they did “attract clouds.”
In 1904, Charles had his first break in the pluviculture scene. A group of ranchers in La Crescenta, California (located in Los Angeles County), hired Charles to “attract clouds” to alleviate their water shortage. During a five-month period, Charles’ rain clouds dumped over 18 inches of rain for the ranchers and their livestock. For his efforts, Charles earned $1000, which in 2023 dollars is the equivalent of around $34,000 in purchasing power [Not too bad for building a tower and evaporating some chemicals. Charles was an entrepreneurial pioneer in the world of generating passive income]. Local press coverage subsequently made Charles quite famous and a much sought-after rainmaker.
By the time the San Diego City Council approached Charles in 1915, he had already been hired for 17 different pluviculture projects. Helping the desperate city would be just another day in the office for him. Charles ended up making a verbal agreement with San Diego. He would attract the rain for free but would charge $1000 per inch between forty and fifty inches.
Without signing a contract, Charles set out to work. As the calendar changed to 1916, Charles and his brother trekked 60 miles deep into the forest east of San Diego. There they constructed a tower near the Morena Reservoir, on top of which Charles’ secret mixture began to evaporate into the sky. As the New Year began, light rain began to fall, prompting local headlines to celebrate the impact of their local rain man. The rain that had so cruelly eluded them was finally soaking the earth and saving their livelihoods. Charles was a local hero, and everyone expected the drought to be over soon enough.
And it was, just not in the way anyone expected.
Within a couple of weeks, San Diegans would start begging Charles to stop his work and make the rain go away. It had begun to destroy homes, wash away trains, and even annihilate an entire town.
When It Rains, It Pours
San Diegans ended up receiving much, much more rain than they wanted. Just as too little rain can devastate a region, so too can an overabundance. After Charles began his experiments, San Diego, in a matter of weeks, swung from extreme drought to devastating flooding.
The next couple of weeks after the New Year saw steady rainfall. From January 15-20, however, things took a sharp turn for the worst. Seventeen inches of rain fell in that time span, causing the San Diego River to overflow and grow to one mile in width. Widespread destruction soon visited San Diego, with 20 people dying as a result of the flooding. Barns and houses were carried away by the rushing waters, the Otay Lake dam disintegrated, and the Old Town bridge collapsed. Residents demanded that Charles stop attracting the rain clouds. By the end of January 1916, 30 inches of rain had fallen on San Diego. It was the wettest month in the region’s recorded history.
Despite all the destruction, Charles was determined to collect payment at least for filling the reservoir, which he technically did. The city, however, refused to pay him. Firstly, they cited the lack of a written contract. Secondly, they did not want to be held responsible for having contracted the man who many thought was capable of conjuring destructive rainclouds. Lawsuits flooded the courts, and the question of who was responsible for the widespread damage was waiting to be answered by whoever accepted payment for the rainmaking job. Ultimately, Charles Hatfield would fight the city for over two decades before the case was eventually dismissed.
Despite the damage of what would be later known as “Hatfield’s Flood,” Charles still had willing clients. His business thrived through the 1920s, until the Great Depression struck and dried up any available funds that farmers, ranchers, and businesses were willing to spend on rainmakers. After this, Charles disappeared from the public eye, only to briefly reemerge in 1956 for the premiere of the movie, The Rainmaker, which was somewhat based on his life.
Then, in 1958, Charles Hatfield died. He never told anyone the contents of his secret rain recipe.
What a life he lived. There is much controversy surrounding Charles Hatfield’s claims. Was he a massive fraud? Or was he actually able to summon and seed clouds with his rainmaking concoction? Was the great flood of 1916 his responsibility? Really, there are only two answers to this question. Either Charles was liable for all the damage, or he was not. Let’s dive into this.
Did Charles Hatfield Chemically Induce a Flood?
As I mentioned earlier, the debate on cloud seeding is as intense as the weather. Both sides have convincing arguments. Regardless, let’s assume for now that cloud seeding does work. Let’s assume that when instruments aboard aircraft inject ice nuclei into cool-enough clouds, more rain and snow precipitate. Let’s even assume this despite the fact that is has not been deployed (or successfully deployed) to solve major drought crises at home and abroad.
It could be the case that Charles Hatfield’s recipe was enough to attract clouds and form a rainstorm, and…
I can’t do this.
I can’t even pretend to make this explanation sound at all possible. Sometimes, I can convincingly draw out a weird possible explanation with a straight face, but this is the first time I’ve been psychologically and physically unable to accomplish this.
There is NOTHING reasonable about this explanation.
Modern cloud seeding technology — today’s pluviculture — can only work in specific conditions measurable by sophisticated instruments. There have to already be present supercool clouds into which scientists deploy ice nuclei. Boiling acid in iron pans will not accomplish this. The technology needed is far more advanced than what Charles Hatfield had at his disposal. Yes, I know I said to not discount a claim because of its age, but this does not mean that people were always right back in the day. There are some things only modern technology can do. Cloud seeding seems to be one of them.
We have not yet considered the possibility that Charles Hatfield employed meteorological knowledge to his advantage. For instance, the rain that caused the Hatfield Flood seems to have been part of a larger storm that caused rainfall in coastal areas north of San Diego. In fact, the rain that he allegedly summoned for the ranchers in La Crescenta was part of a storm that contemporary weather bureau reports had already claimed was on its way.
I think the most likely explanation is that Charles Hatfield used his knowledge of incoming storm fronts to target cities that were in need of extra rainfall. I do not think his rudimentary cloud seeding tower had the ability to summon a history-making rainstorm. The technology was far too primitive.
Was Charles Hatfield a fraud? By the looks of it, yes.
Same Sh*t, Different Day
Charlatans, fraudsters, and tricksters have always been among us. They exploit people’s curiosity and vulnerability to reap their ill-gotten gains. The story of Charles Hatfield is a powerful reminder of the necessity of being discerning in our daily lives.
These days, the concern is not so much for rainmakers as it is online financial scams involving cryptocurrencies, NFTs, or fake job advertisements. The scammers behind these ploys will promise the world to their potential victims. Whether its unending returns on investment or lucrative passive income or a position with surprisingly high compensation compared to similar job postings, scammers will say just about anything to take whatever they can get from you.
The drought conditions in San Diego led local leaders to pursue desperate measures. In the end, the storm would have come regardless, but they were very close to doling out a large sum of money to a fraudster, money that could have been used in the reconstruction effort. Scammers will target vulnerabilities. In today’s unpredictable economy, it is important to be on the lookout for the Charles Hatfields of our day. In some ways, they are worse than Charles Hatfield himself. While our beloved rainmaker could not actually cause destructive rains, the scammers of today most certainly can bring financial ruin upon their victims.