Russia will use cloud-seeding techniques to prevent rain andensure ideal snow conditions during the 2014 Winter Olympics, thelocal organizing committee leader said Thursday.Dmitry Chernyshenko said organizers are developing severalcontingency plans – including stockpiling snow and dispersingclouds – to avoid the weather problems that plagued this year’sVancouver Olympics.“With all these positive techniques, we will guarantee theperfect snow conditions regardless of the weather,” Chernyshenkotold The Associated Press in a telephone interview.February’s Vancouver Games suffered weather postponements anddelays at the Alpine events in Whistler, and the cancellation of28,000 standing-room tickets at Cypress Mountain due to warmweather and lack of snow.“We learned all the challenges that Vancouver faced and nowwe’re in the process of creating a special program to mitigate anyabnormal weather conditions,” Chernyshenko said following meetingsin Sochi with Vancouver and IOC officials designed to pass onlessons from the 2010 Games.“We will have all available techniques like stockpiling snow,protection of existing snow, even from the previous season, clouddissolution, and technology to prepare the snow,” he said.Seeding clouds, Chernyshenko said, will mean “the rain willfall in another region, not in the region of the competition.”Cloud-seeding is a common weather tactic in Russia. Thepractice, which dates back to Soviet times, involves releasingsilver iodide and dry ice…