On August 15, 1952, one of the worst flash floods ever to have occurred in Britain swept through the Devon village of Lynmouth. Thirty five people died as a torrent of 90m tons of water and thousands of tons of rock poured off saturated Exmoor and into the village destroying homes, bridges, shops and hotels. The disaster was officially termed "the hand of God" but new evidence from previously classified government files suggests that a team of international scientists working with the RAF was experimenting with artificial rainmaking in southern Britain in the same week and could possibly be implicated. Squadron Leader Len Otley, who was working on what was known as Operation Cumulus, has told the BBC that they jokingly referred to the rainmaking exercise as Operation Witch Doctor. His navigator, Group Captain John Hart, remembers the success of these early experiments: "We flew straight through the top of the cloud, poured dry ice down into the cloud. We flew down to see if any rain came out of the cloud. And it did about 30 minutes later, and we all cheered." // SAN FRANCISCO — A powerful storm referred to as a "bomb cyclone" and "atmospheric river" walloped Northern California late Sunday into Monday morning, causing flooding, power outages and mudslides. Drenching showers and strong winds accompanied the weekend's arrival of the atmospheric river — a long and wide plume of moisture pulled in from the Pacific Ocean. The storm soaking the Bay Area on Sunday was tied as the third-strongest since 1950 on the Bay Area Storm Index, and the strongest in 26 years, https://www.npr.org/2021/10/24/1048862514/powerful-storm-brings-heavy-rain-flooding-and-mud-flows-to-northern-california https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/aug/30/sillyseason.physicalsciences