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Specialized weather aircraft on duty in Moscow region to spray chemicals on clouds

The specialized fleet includes ten planes, including Antonov-12, Antonov-26 and Yakovlev-42, all of them belonging to the Russian Federal Service of Weather Monitoring and Environment Control

MOSCOW, September 9. /TASS/. Specialized aircraft have come on duty in the Moscow region to spray chemicals on clouds if weather spoils suddenly and starts threatening the numerous official functions and public events on the occasion of City Day, the air control service of the Moscow airport cluster told TASS

The specialized fleet includes ten planes, including Antonov-12, Antonov-26 and Yakovlev-42, all of them belonging to the Russian Federal Service of Weather Monitoring and Environment Control (Rosgidromet).

"Weather monitoring experts have gotten down to surveying the situation in order to assess the weather conditions near Moscow and on the far approaches to it," a spokesperson for the air control service said.

The dispelling of clouds, an operation that specialists call 'cloud seeding' will unlikely be needed on Saturday as there are no signs of an approaching rain.

"The seeding is one with the aid of silver idodide and small-size cement in the radius of several hundred kilometers around Moscow," the spokesman said. "The operations of the planes will not affect schedules at Moscow airports in any way, as they do their job away from the flight corridors for commercial aviation."

By tradition, clouds over Moscow are dispelled on May 1, V-Day, Russia Day, and Moscow Day.

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