Hopes that El Nino will end California’s drought are withering. It appears they’re being replaced with high hopes for the science of cloud-seeding.

Southern California in particular has been suffering from a lack of precipitation and now Los Angeles County officials are reviving its cloud-seeding program for $550,000 a year. The program was abandoned in 2009 – several years after it had last been used – apparently out of fear that too much rain would destabilize hillsides charred from wildfires. It was resurrected last year after the governor’s declaration of a water emergency.