oh that stuff - its like weather seeding - the russians have been doing it for awhile - I think when Chernobyl happened they did that to direct the nuclear fallout rain to another country

Discovery Channel also had an entire night on weather seeding. Basically they deposit chemicals in the air at such a point and it either cools the atmosphere drawing the storm in that direction or heats it up pushing it away etc - I don't know about civilian and military aircraft, but they showed one of the NOAA planes seeding a storm

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GzazIMyDmD8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Stormfury