The sky was reliably clear over May Day parades in the Soviet Union, not because it never rains in Moscow but because the Kremlin would order the dispersal of any clouds. This was done with blasts of silver iodide, or dry ice, provoking precipitation in the morning so none fell on Red Square in the afternoon.
That is what “making the weather” involves in authoritarian states. The supreme ruler dictates what will appear in the news bulletin and the subsequent meteorological forecast.
