Weather Control Machine

Today's Forecast: Partly Cloudy with a chance of DOOM!

"Bow before COBRA and my WEATHER DOMINATOR! Or I'll crank the humidity so high no ass-crack will ever be dry again! An eternity of swamp ass!" —Cobra Commander, Robot Chicken

A Doomsday Device that seems to be able to control elements in the atmosphere to create storms, clear the clouds, or even cause earthquakes. TV writers seem to confuse weather with natural disasters. The device was obviously built by Reed Richards or Lex Luthor as it is never used for any practical application or to make money directly, which messes with the Willing Suspension of Disbelief. All in all, the whole idea of controlling such a nebulous concept as "weather" is... just odd. Hasn't stopped people from trying though.

Often the cause of Weather Dissonance If the machine is destroyed, naturally everything will go back to the "default" weather setting of that area regardless of whatever new elements were introduced into the atmosphere to produce these new weather patterns.

Also see Snow Means Cold.

Examples of Weather Control Machine include:

Anime and Manga

• Nami, the Straw Hat Pirates' navigator in One Piece has the Clima Tact, a small-scale weather control machine built by Usopp. While initially requiring Nami to think outside even Usopp's original specs to use effectively, Usopp has since upgraded it to allow Nami to easily rain lightning down on foes and create deceptive mirages in the heat of battle.
• An brief off hand line by Sasami in the Tenchi Muyo! OAV suggests that Jurai has weather control technology.
• Doraemon has several divices in his pocket that can control weather in a sort of way.
• Hanaukyo Maid Tai episode 3. Ikuyo Suzuki's greatest invention, Tenki-kun.

Comic Books

• DC Comics has the Flash Rogue the Weather Wizard. Traditionally he uses a wand with weather control technology built in, though there have been some indications he actually has innate weather powers.
• The Weatherman, a villain from the Banana Man comic book and animated series, had one of these.
• Thor's hammer in Marvel Comics
• The weather is controlled by humans in Judge Dredd.
• One of The Smurfs once built such a device. Things soon went awry.
• Dilbert's Garbage Man has a machine that controls the weather.
• Atomic Robo has Otto Skorzeny build a "weather cannon." Lampshaded immediately, as Robo claims that it is doomed to failure just because it is so ridiculous (especially since they thought they were building super long distance railgun artillery, which would have been much more useful).
• In PS238, the fact that the school is covered by Weather Satelites is frequently mentioned (and, at one point, weaponized), but even their control cannot stand up to the powers of The Rainmaker. (He's a lot more dangerous than he sounds.) The ghost of a nameless Native Shaman apparently also had weather-control powers when he was alive, and eventually gets to use them when he possesses a student with the ability to channel ghostly powers...
• In the first arc of The Mighty Avengers we learn that Tony Stark (already on the edge of the Moral Event Horizon after the Marvel Civil War) has launched weather altering satellites into orbit. They are hijacked by Ultron.
• In the Legion of Super-Heroes comics, it's the 31st century and all weather is machine-controlled.

Film

• The "Weather Satellites" in Superman III.
• Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery: Dr. Evil mentions that in the 1960s, he had a "weather changing machine that was, in essence, a sophisticated heat beam which we called a 'laser'."
• The Avengers 1998. Sir August De Wynter uses one to extort Great Britain. Slightly subverted in that he does plan to use it to make legitimate money (by "selling" weather to the countries of the world) but squeezes the Villain Ball tight by also threatening to bring natural disasters on the countries that don't comply.

De Wynter: Rain or shine...all is mine!

• In the 1960s Bond spoof Our Man Flint, the Galaxy organization threatened to use its weather control device (which could also cause earthquakes) to bring the world to its knees unless the nations of Earth destroyed all of their nuclear weapons, aircraft and navies and accepted Galaxy's guidance. Yes, they were Well-Intentioned Extremists.
• The Truman Show
• The Ultimate Christmas Present is a weather machine that causes it to snow in Los Angeles.
• Japanese movie Kaij ûtô no kessen: Gojira no musuko
• The second Williams and Ree movie, subtitled Totem Recall, pitted Bruce and Terry against a mad scientist and his weather machine gone amok.
• WALL-E, the Megacorporation known as Buy N Large, had established a Global Weather Control System, the system was made of satellites that would change and control the weather in the areas that they were in. The system worked so well that soon Buy N Large even launched a program were citizens can book certain weather in the areas where they live. Such as, scheduling a Thunderstorm during a parade so that it will literally "rain on their parade."
• Zoom Academy For Superheroes freatures an "Outdoor Survival Simulator", which can generate wind, rain, lightning, snow, tornadoes and earthquakes. Our child protagonists use it it to beat the ever lovin' crap out of Chevy Chase.
• Murder By Death: Mr. Twain has a weather device that creates a thunderstorm that prevents our protagonists from leaving the house as per the cliched detective story fashion.
• Igor: It's revealed that the perpetual gloomy weather in Malaria was caused by one of these.
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: Flint Lockwood accidentally creates a machine that makes it rain food.

Literature

• Ben Bova's The Weathermakers is the story of a government agency that controls the weather.
• Sidney Sheldon's Are You Afraid of the Dark is the story of a think tank that builds technology powerful enough to create hurricanes, tornadoes, and tsunamis.
• Michael Crichton's State of Fear, ecoterrorists plan to create a tsunami, calve an iceberg, and induce flash flooding and hurricanes.
• Normand Lester's science thriller Verglas, the 1998 icestorm that struck the Montr éal area is an experiment by The Pentagon in the development of a climactic weapon that went wrong. The book speculate that ULF waves generated by a transmitter at Siple Station, a US base in Antarctica, caused the icestorm by affecting the ionosphere over Qu ébec.
• Lois Lowry's The Giver, the government controls the weather and keeps it from snowing, and confine rain to the farmland.
• Weather Warden by Rachel Caine, the Wardens are an association of people who have the ability to control the elements - earth, fire and weather. They manipulate these elements to stop natural disasters from devastating mankind. The main character herself is a Weather Warden, so weather manipulation plays a large role throughout the series.
• Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber an openly known quality of the Jewel of Judgment is the ability to control the local weather.
• Frank Herbert's Dune series, weather control is widespread, and is achieved with specialized satellites in orbit around a planet.
• The female magic-users of the Sea Folk in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time primarily used their channeling to produce winds favorable for their boats. Their assistance in using a ter'angreal, the "Bowl of the Winds," to overcome a prolonged magical drought was a major plot point in the middle of the series. In this case, however, No Ontological Inertia was averted:

Caire: Do you think Weaving the Winds is like throwing the helm over on a darter? I just moved the rudder on a skimmer with a beam as broad as the world! He will take time to turn, time to know he is supposed to turn. That he must turn. But when he does, not the Father of Storms himself will be able to stand in his way.

• In the Vampire Hunter D novels weather control systems used to be ubiquitous in the now-extinct vampire civilization, used for practical purposes as well as entertainment, and were occasionally even weaponized. They, like everything else is breaking down After the End, resulting in some highly unpredictable or just plain unnatural weather patterns in large portions of the planet.
• In Robert E. Howard's The Hour of the Dragon, Xaltotun tries to trap Conan the Barbarian by creating a flood with rains. He dismisses it as a fluke when it fails; actually, other magic was used against it.
• In one of the Ring World novels, the explorers create a living Weather Control Machine by provoking some laser-firing plants to direct their beams at a shallow sea. This causes a huge cloud of steam to rise, and sets off a localized rainstorm that continues indefinitely.

Live Action TV

• The Six Million Dollar Man/The Bionic Woman crossover three-part episode "Kill Oscar": The Mad Scientist Doctor Franklin had a Weather Control Machine.
• The Seventies Wonder Woman first season episode "Judgment From Outer Space": The alien Andros had a necklace medallion that could (among other things) control the weather.
• Doctor Who had one, in "The Moonbase" and again in "The Seeds of Doom".
• In Star Trek a lot of planets have weather control machines. A pair of Q turned human were killed on Earth when the weather controllers "mysteriously" malfunctioned, the Ferengi set theirs to have constant downpours, In Deep Space Nine 's "Let He Who is Without Sin" we learn that Pleasure Planet Risa has machines that keep the weather constantly pleasant and some aliens from the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Tattoo" were able to create storms with theirs.
• "The Touchstone" in Stargate SG-1.
  • In their early appearances, Asgard vessels can apparently summon thunderclouds and lightning for visual effect when they swoop in and get their Gunship Rescue on. This is dropped in later seasons, as they stop flying their ships in atmosphere.
• One of the most popular and famous storylines on General Hospital involved disabling one so the evil Cassadines would not freeze the world. No, really. Luckily Luke and Laura, the show's Official Couple, managed to save the day from the Big Bad who was controlling it.
• An episode of Sliders had a world ruined by the U.S. and Soviet weather control machines...........
• The Nineties remake of The Tomorrow People had a villain who was an American cereal magnate with such a machine; in a more thoughtful example than most, his Evil Plan was to use it to destroy the corn harvest of the United States in order to make his own stockpiles more valuable a la Egypt in The Bible.
• Lost in Space The Space Trader uses a weather control machine to force the Robinsons to depend on him for supplies.
• The Made for TV Movie Get Smart, Again!, features the criminal organization KAOS with a weather control machine that they use to hold the world hostage.

Radio

• The Superman Radio Drama had one of these made by Lois Lane's uncle. He decided that The World Is Not Ready after criminals use the device to create storms so they can loot.

Tabletop Games

• There are weather control satellites in GURPS: Ultra-Tech but they're huge, expensive and limited in effect.
• In Warhammer 40000, the Imperium of Man, Eldar, and Tyranids are all capable of massive weather alterations, but only the Necrons take it a step further and use weather control for military purposes, though they reserve it for a larger scale than most games.
• Controlling the weather is one of the more common special powers afforded to the darklords of Ravenloft, to better control their domains, although they generally don't need a device to do it.

Video Games

• Tales of Vesperia
• Inverted in the Ar tonelico series. The weather control devices (called the Musical Corridor/Wings of Hynemos depending on the game) are part of the devices that allow people to survive at the extreme altitude at which they've been forced to live.
• In Red Alert 2, one of these is the Allied superweapon. Somewhat justified in that the entire American nuclear arsenal was destroyed in the game's intro, so they had to turn to new ideas for superweapons.
  • The Scrin in Command And Conquer 3 have the ability to artificially induce storms, which make certain units even better.
• One of the new rewards introduced in The Sims 2: Seasons.
• In Elements Of Destruction, you are one of these. Or rather, you're a Mad Scientist with a weather control machine, and attack your enemies with earthquakes, tornadoes and thunderbolts.
• In City of Heroes, one of the Arcs on the Hero-side involves stopping Nemesis from using his Weather Control Machine to destroy or conquer the city! Of course, Nemesis is nothing if not 'old skool'...
• Sonic & Knuckles, Mushroom Hill Zone Act 2, shows not just the weather changing, but the seasons as well. It goes from summer, to autumn (complete with leaves falling from trees), to winter, in less than 10 real-time minutes. Then, just before the boss fight, you destroy the machine that's causing it (a radar dish shooting lightning into the sky) and the level immediately reverts to summer weather.
• Inverted in Star Fox Assault, where the machine keeps the frequent blizzards on Fichina in check, and needs to be repaired before the planet becomes completely uninhabitable again.
  • That sounds similar to Titania in the original Star Fox, where the level starts in a blizzard, and halfway though you deactivate the weather control machine to clear the sky.
• These show up all the time in various games in the Mega Man series, usually without any particular relevance to the plot, but just for fun effects on various levels.
  • Made important in Mega Man Battle Network 2 when the computer suppressing the planet's weather is hacked, threatening to unleash years' worth of earthquakes and storms on the planet. Also in Battle Network 6.
• In Touhou Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, Tenshi Hinanai's Sword of Hisou has the power to alter the weather based upon a person's temperment. She uses it to instigate Weather Dissonance, among other things.
• A weather control machine is featured conservatively in the Tribunal expansion to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind under the city of Mournhold. Unlike some other Dwemer machinations, no attempt to justify it is given.
  • Considering one of the valid settings includes "ash storm," whether or not it was built as a genuine weather machine is worth questioning.
• Okami features on of these in Kamui. It is used by demons to unleash a massive blizzard on the citizens of Wep'Keer.
• Climatrol in Phantasy Star II. Meddling with it nearly floods the entire planet. Phantasy Star III also has a similar machine to control the tides and even the moons, but here it is somewhat justified as the world is actually a giant spaceship.
• The eponymous ark in Ys VI: The Ark of Napishitim.
• The villains of Jade Empire stole a god's power, allowing them to control the weather, and specifically end a drought that was devastating the Empire. (This is their reason, or at least justification, for the act.) Unfortunately, saving the Empire meant dooming some other part of the world, and the god's absence has led to the dead being unable to move on, causing all sorts of problems.
• In Paper Mario, Huff N. Puff and his minions use of these to cover Flower Fields in clouds. The overcast is so bad that the sun actually falls into depression and leaves the sky, placing the citizens of Flower Fields (all of whom are plants) at risk.
• Die Spinne from the Xbox game Crimson Skies: The High Road to Revenge has this as one of their super weapons. It is mounted on one very large and incredibly tough zeppelin battleship.
• In Galactic Civilisations II Twilight of the Arnor, you can build these on your planets if you're Arcean. Partial subversion in that they're very much useful, increasing the quality of planets substantially.
• Weather Control is a planetary improvement in Master of Orion 2. It greatly increases farm productivity.
• In Limbo, you have to operate a machine to start a downpour.
• The Luminoth of Metroid have this as one of their wonders. Its couldn't fix all the problems a recent disaster caused though.
• Sir Raleigh in the first Sly Cooper game has a storm machine in the shape of an airship that he uses to cause squalls and sink ships.
• Final Fantasy XIII-2 has one under the control of the Archylte Steppe nomads. Each weather condition has a different effect on the monster population: Sunny and rainy bring out more fauna-like monsters, cloudy spawns goblins and machines, and stormy brings out droves of Cie'th.
• A couple of different Shouts in The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim have this effect. Clear Skies eliminates local weather effects (like Misterious Mist), while Storm Call does Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

Web Animation

• One of these shows up for a bit in Red vs. Blue. The concept is ruthlessly mocked in a deleted scene as Tex discusses the uses for a weather control machine in space.
• One of the Cheat Commandos cartoons from Homestar Runner has Gunhaver speculating that Blue Laser are planning to buy a machine that will "turn babies into gold. Or screw with the weather."

Webcomics

• In Gunnerkrigg Court, Chapter 19, the characters see some sort of power station in the middle of a lake. The real purpose of the station is currently unknown, but its observed effects include the creation of clouds, massive lightning bolts, and brief downpours.
• As this Shortpacked! strip shows, Destro isn't interested in the "legitimate" approach.
• This "changing seasons montage" in Keychain of Creation turns out to just be Misho playing with a weather machine.
• In Girl Genius : CRAKOOM! Gilgamesh sure has some awesome toys...
• In Sarab, the Hubs are facilities that control weather among other natural phenomena.

Western Animation

• There have been at least five weather machine usages on Kim Possible. The first is seen in the background of an R&D, but its function is mentioned to show how advanced the facility was. The second time was used to attack Canada. Third brought to life an army of evil snowmen and brought a brief raining of frogs (wait... what?) The fourth was created by "Evil Ron" and dubbed "The Mega Weather Generator". The fifth was used to make sure it was always winter (but never Christmas). The appropriate Continuity Nods occur.
  • Actually, the third example was the second one being reused.
• The Magic School Bus had one. Justified as part of an Edutainment Show.
• 1973/74 Superfriends episode "The Weather Maker". An underwater nuclear powered jet engine can control the weather by changing the course of the Gulf Stream.
• Professor Nimnul once built one of these on Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers. It was a flying box that could disguise itself via artificial clouds.
• In an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Stone Warriors use a "Weather Satellite".
• Stewie builds one in Family Guy.
• G.I. Joe: The Revenge of Cobra showed Cobra in possession of a device called the Weather Dominator.
• In an episode of Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines, Klunk built an airborne weather control machine.
• One of Baron Greenback's dastardly plans in Danger Mouse involved one of these.

Stiletto: I know why you call it that. Greenback: Why? Stiletto: 'Cause you don't know "weather" it will work! Ow!

• Homer Simpson and his Nuclear Reactor team are way ahead of the Germ Warfare and Weather Machine divisions.
• Ben 10 "Monster Weather": A suped up Weather Satellite S.A.M. starts controlling the weather after being struck by lightning.
  • The DNAliens also possess weather control machines in the Spin-Off Series Ben 10 Alien Force "Everyone Talks About The Wheather".
• The Captain Caveman episode of The Flintstone Comedy Show "Stormfront and Weathergirl" features two weather-controlling villains stealing a weather satellite to launch into orbit to amplify the range of their weather-controlling powers to cover (and conquer) the entire planet.
• Gadget and the Gadgetinis episode "The Weather Machine"
  • The original Inspector Gadget series had "Weather in Tibet".
• Phineas and Ferb: In "Leave the Busting to Us!," Doofenshmirtz plans to use his Gloominator 3000...inator to launch weather pellets into the clouds, plunging the tri-state area into a new ice age.
• Star Wars: Clone Wars. Though it's never explained how or why, it's implied that the activities of the Techno Union were screwing with the geothermal activity of planet Nelvaan and causing the winter weather that Obi-wan and Anakin observed. In any case, as soon as Anakin destroys the crystal core of their machine, the ice and snow immediately begins thawing.
• Bucky O Hare and The Toad Wars featured the Climate Converter, used by the Toads to turn Bucky's homeworld into a swamp.
• Birdman episode "Versus Cumulus, The Storm King". The title character has machines that can create lightning storms, fog and clouds.
• On Jimmy Two-Shoes, Heloise built the Snowberator 901 to gives Miseryville its First Snow.
• In the Underdog story "Weathering the Storm", Simon Barsinister combined this with an Ominous Pipe Organ.
• In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, the weather of Ponyville is controlled by a weather factory managed by the pegasus ponies. In fact, the concept of uncontrolled weather is alien to the ponies, and one of their many reasons for fearing the Everfree Forest is the way that its weather could change on its own.
• A low-tech approach was used in a Super Chicken episode, where a rash of elephants in the city leads our heroes to an Indian maharajah, who has shipped the elephants strategically for their weight to tip the earth's pole so he can enjoy snow.
• The Pearl of Bahoudin turns out to be one of these in the Transformers episode The trans-Europe express.
• Referenced in Transformers Prime. When natural disasters happen across the globe Agent Fowler sarcastically asks if the Decepticons have built a weather machine. Ratchet responds with "One that powerful, highly unlikely."
• In Transformers Rescue Bots, a weather machine is used to make it snow in the summer.

Real Life

• There is one major form of real-life weather control known as "cloud seeding", which doesn't involve a machine, but instead putting substances into clouds so the rain drops somewhere else. Results have been rather mixed, but the technique is still used fairly frequently.
  • Yes, the Yanks With Tanks tried it in The Vietnam War, in something called Operation Popeye in 1966-7. When revealed to the press, weather modification for military purposes was banned by Congress and then by an international agreement.
    • Except when it's done within U.S. borders, apparently, since cloud seeding is regularly performed over the various remote military installations in California and Nevada (Edwards AFB, White Sands, etc). It's considered more effective there because there aren't a whole lot of clouds over those unholy wastelands in the first place.
  • It is not known whether or not this works.
    • It works, but it's unclear whether it is to effective degree or not.
• Some say that George W. Bush used a real-life weather machine to create Hurricane Katrina.
• The Canadian Broadcasting Centre says this is a real-life weather control machine.
• Recently, its been reported that Abu Dhabi scientists have been able to use ionizers to create rain, thunder-, and hailstorms. The results aren't conclusive yet. The best that can be said is that it has rained more than usual after switching the ionizers on, during a dry season when it shouldn't be raining much at all.
• The British science programme, Bang Goes the Theory, showed the actual manufacture of a cloud in a machine, and then the wind, lightning, rain and snow that came with it.
• Various weather-simulators exist, which can reproduce the effects of intense winds, downpours, wind-blown sand or dust, and even lightning on a small scale. Most are used to test materials and construction techniques to ensure they are weather-resistant, or to re-create harsh weather conditions to which cars or planes might be subjected.