Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody seems to do anything about it. Well, not really. Long ago, to make it rain the Chinese fired rockets into the skies and sacrificed virgins by throwing them into rivers. Of course Native Americans have rain dances. But there’s one man near Fresno, who’s waging his own war on weather with a hail cannon.

It is the sound of one mans attempt to manipulate Mother Nature. But he wasn’t the first. In the 1960’s and ’70’s, the U.S. spent big bucks on cloud seeding experiments with names likely inspired by X-men comic books, they tried to control hurricanes, snow pack and lightning.

These days, cloud seeding is common west of the Mississippi. The resulting rain helps crops, increases snowfall, and keeps fog from forming on top of busy airports like Salt Lake City International. But what to do when you don’t want weather like hail? We went to someone who thinks he has the answer.

It is John Diepersloot’s kingdom, the Kingsburg orchards as far as the eye can see, as well as his high-tech Doppler radar.

"We’re trying to see when the weather pattern is coming up, the cells that are in it, if they’re dense enough to create hail,” says Diepersloot.

One hail storm and John can lose an entire crop of fruit and endure a cataclysmic chain reaction.

"If I lose, yeah it’s my ranch. If they lose it’s their livelihood,” he says.

There are hundreds of migrant workers at the mercy of Mother Nature. That’s why John is dependent upon Doppler and a low-tech contraption that has its roots on the beaches of Normandy.

"I believe in WWI or WWII they were seeing them in the war when the Howitzers were shooting up at each other. And when they were shooting there was no hail,” he says.

These days, China’s using howitzer-like artillery shells filled with chemicals to seed clouds and make it rain. But John wants to turn destructive hail into a gentle rain with a hail cannon.

"What comes out of the top of this thing? It’s a vibrational sonic boom,” he says. "When it hits the clouds it’s a little bit of vibration doesn’t allow the ice to form.”

John and about four other area farmers have spent over a $1 million on 18 of these cannons collectively when hail insurance got too expensive. While John may be willing to bet the ranch with his cannons, many scientists don’t buy it.

"There are farmers that are grasping for straws in my opinion," says Dr. Joe Golden.

Golden has led research on weather modification for decades.

John’s heard the skeptics, but continues on.

"We’re hoping it works. The first two years we had it we’ve had up to six or seven hail storms. Potential storms come through. We’ve come through it so far,” he says.

Via CBS13 (w/video)