Overview
- State media reported a salt-spraying flight over Lake Urmia on Saturday as part of emergency weather modification efforts.
- National rainfall is about 89% below the long-term average, with roughly half of provinces receiving no rain for months.
- Lake Urmia, the country’s largest lake, has largely dried into a salt desert after prolonged water scarcity.
- President Massud Peseschkian issued the evacuation warning for Tehran, with local figures describing the capital’s driest spell in a century.
- Officials tout a domestically developed cloud-seeding method also used in countries such as the United States, China and India, while water shortages force intermittent closures of factories, government offices and public toilets.