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Idaho Power, which serves customers in Idaho and Oregon, has been using cloud seeding to boost the volume of water moving through its hydroelectric dams since 2003. “Ten percent of additional snowfall is within the natural variation of storms.” Still, he said, cloud seeding programs are difficult to evaluate. That translates into 80,000 more acre-feet a year of water, enough to sustain about 150,000 households.
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Nevada’s cloud seeding program can increase the snowpack by up to 10 percent, McDonough said. Along the Colorado River, more water is promised to people than is available. “People in the western United States – we’re always water-stressed out here,” said Frank McDonough, an atmospheric scientist in Nevada who oversees the cloud seeding program at the Desert Research Institute, part of the state university system. A 2014 study across two Wyoming mountain ranges found that cloud seeding could increase snowfall by 5 to 15 percent – but only when the right conditions for seeding were met, or during 30 percent of snow events. Other recent studies have used computer modeling to estimate the increase in snowfall from cloud seeding. Such research has increased interest in cloud seeding, particularly among private companies and utilities, said Neil Brackin, president of Weather Modification, a North Dakota company that does cloud seeding. The recent study, which was conducted in Idaho and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was the first to show real-world observations of silver iodide forming ice crystals inside clouds and falling out as snow. Others use airplanes to drop flares that generate silver iodide smoke into clouds, or to fly into a storm with flares strapped to their wings. Some state programs rely on ground-based machines. How this tribe survives in Colorado’s worst drought region with as little as 10% of its hard-won water supplyĬloud seeding machines generate smoke that floats into the air like incense. The processworks only when there are freezing, moist clouds in the air. Yet it’s hard to tell how much additional precipitation cloud seeding creates. Major urban water districts in Arizona, California and Nevada have funded cloud seeding in the Rocky Mountains for more than 10 years and are now close to signing an agreement with officials in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming to split the cost of nine more years of seeding.Ĭloud seeding is a relatively cheap tool for bulking up the water supply in Lake Mead and other reservoirs, said Mohammed Mahmoud, a senior policy analyst for the Central Arizona Water Conservation District. “Everyone starts to get nervous when there’s no snow in Colorado,” said Joe Busto, the scientist who oversees Colorado’s cloud seeding program. Most of the river basin is experiencing a drought. That combination makes ice crystals form, which eventually become snowflakes.Ĭolorado’s program, which costs $1 million a year, is paid for not just by the state, ski resorts and local water users but also by water districts as far away as Los Angeles that want to increase snowmelt into the Colorado River, which sustains more than 30 million people across the Southwest. Their goal is the same: to “seed” clouds with particles of silver iodide, a compound that freezing water vapor easily attaches to. New ones are large metal boxes festooned with solar panels, weather sensors and a slim tower. Some older versions of the contraptions look like large tin cans perched on top of a propane tanks.
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In Colorado alone, more than 100 cloud seeding machines are set up in mountainside back yards, fields and meadows. The evidence for cloud seeding has been scarce, but recent research has encouraged officials and companies desperate to increase the amount of water in rivers and reservoirs. Last month, a study funded by the National Science Foundation tracked for the first time how the technology works in nature. But worsening water scarcity, combined with new evidence that “cloud seeding” can work, is spurring states, counties, water districts and power companies across the thirsty West to use the strategy. – Machines that prod clouds to make snow may sound like something out of an old science fiction movie. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close MenuĬHEYENNE, Wyo.