Hoping for Just Enough Rain

Under cloudy hazy skies, performers wait to enter the National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest, for a rehearsal of the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing, Wednesday (9:37 am), July 30, 2008. (Oded Balilty - AP)

On July 20, Beijing launched a much-ballyhooed plan to clear its smoggy air. Construction was stilled; private cars had to stay off the roads on alternate days; big trucks were banned during the day; many factories were shut.

But the air didn't clear. It got murkier.

The official New China News Agency published a story Monday that quoted the dismay of blogger Han Song: "Is this what we got, seven days after we pulled half of the city's cars out of the roads?"

Typhoon Fung-Wong came to Beijing's rescue Tuesday morning. Although it hit land far south of Beijing, its high pressure system lashed the capital with welcome wind and rain. By the afternoon, the sky was still a mass of clouds, but the air was clearing. Tops of skyscrapers came back into view. You could almost hear the city's meteorologists sighing with relief.

Experts say Beijing's air quality problems are far from fixed. By Wednesday afternoon, the murk was back. So the right combination of wind, rain and temperature is needed to keep up appearances for a while.

The Chinese don't want to leave that combination up to chance. If there were a medal competition for weather modification, China would be favored to take the gold.

The New China News Agency reported Monday that an entity called the Beijing Weather-Engineering Office has hired 32,000 people and set up 26 control stations to weave a "defensive web" around the Bird's Nest to stop rain falling from the start of the Aug. 8 opening ceremony at 8:08 p.m. until its close at 11:30 p.m.

The agency reported that since 2001, when Beijing was awarded the Games, meteorologists have been experimenting with "cloud seeding" -- shooting dry ice into clouds to make the water droplets heavier. That allows meteorologists to squeeze rain out of the clouds early, before they drift over the Bird's Nest, although the technology is said to work only with light cloud cover.

Qiao Lin, chief forecaster of the China Meteorological Administration, says that if rain does fall during the opening ceremony, it is likely to be light, not a downpour.

As the old Chinese saying has it, such a sprinkle could be auspicious. "If there is a minor rain during the opening ceremony, that's a sign of the Chinese people's kindness and hospitality," said Yuan Li, a Beijing folklore researcher.

Researcher Liu Liu contributed to this report.