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<br />~ <br /> <br />material to affect the rainfall at the surface is 30 minutes, then one might expect the seeding effect <br />to be displaced to the east approximately one grid cell. Again, comparison of the seeding-material <br />pattern and the rainfall pattern shows little relationship. It is possible that a relationship exists if <br />only the rainfall on seed days or only that on days seeded for rain increase (as opposed to hail <br />suppression) were considered. For reasons stated elsewhere, however, this study does not <br />consider rainfall on individual days. <br /> <br />The facts that (1) the observed rainfall in the target area during the seed years was only slightly <br />less than that in the controls, (2) the target-area patterns are not materially different from the total <br />study area, and (3) there is little relationship between location of release of seeding material and <br />rainfall amount suggest that the rainfall differences are due to climatic variations; i.e., the 1975-85 <br />seed period was, in general, simply drier than the 1948-74 no-seed period. This conclusion, <br />however, carries with it the implication that the Western Kansas Weather Modification Project had <br />little or no effect on seasonal rainfall. <br /> <br />1bese results are reasonably consistent with those of earlier studies of this project. Hsu and Chen <br />[I] studied monthly and seasonal rainfall for 1975-79. They calculated ratios of mean seasonal <br />(May-August) rainfall in the seed period (1975-79) to that for the 1931-71 period. In general, the <br />ratios were not significantly different from 1.0. They also applied multiple regression and <br />principle component regression techniques, both indicating slight (but not statistically significant) <br />decreases during the seed period. Huff et al. [2] concentrated on daily, rather than monthly, data. <br />They restricted their analyses to May, July, and August; June was omitted because operations <br />were primarily directed toward hail suppression. Days in the other three months on which <br />seeding was exclusively for hail suppression were also omitted. The days were categorized by <br />storm motion, synoptic type, and storm intensity. They found that target rainfall exceeded control <br />rainfall on days when storms moved from a generally southwest direction (SSW through WSW) <br />or from the west-northwest. Control rainfall exceeded target rainfall on days when storms moved <br />from the west and northwest. Target rainfall was greater than control rainfall in squall-line, <br />stationary-front, and air-mass storms, but was le'ss than control rainfall in cold-front, postfrontal, <br />and squall-zone storms. However, these things could well have happened by chance. Huff et al. <br />[2] conclude that, although overall increases in rainfall averaging about 9 percent were found for <br />seed days, ". · · natural rainfall variability and lack of randomization procedures in the seeding <br />operations confounded establishment of firm conclusions from the [Western Kansas Weather <br />Modification Project] operations." <br /> <br />4. EVALUATION OF EFFECfS OF SEEDING UPON HAIL LOSSES <br /> <br />4.1 Organization of Data <br /> <br />.. <br /> <br />As previously noted, the evaluation of hail losses was carried out using data supplied by the <br />CHIAA (Crop-Hail Insurance Actuarial Association) of Chicago. There was no practical altemative <br />to using crop-hail data, because other records of hail in the target area, say from National Weather <br />Service stations or from newspapers, are very spotty and do not provide a standard measure of the <br />intensity of hailstorms. <br /> <br />As the seeding program did not reserve any no-seed cases to serve as controls, it was decided to <br />conduct the analysis by comparing the relative intensity of hail damage in the target and <br />surrounding areas during the years with seeding and during prior years without seeding. This is <br />the same method as that used in the evaluation of the effects of seeding upon rainfall. It was <br />decided to extend the historical or base period back to 1948. This decision represented a <br />compromise between the need for a sufficiently long base period to provide some stability to the <br /> <br />25 <br />