WMOD00268

• Applicant: CWCB
• Sponsor Name: USBR
• Project Name: Final Report Weather Damage Mitigation Program
• Title: Numerical Simulations of Snowpack Augmentation for Drought Mitigation Studies in the Colorado Rocky Mountains
• Prepared For: USBR - WDMP
• Prepared By: Curt Hartzell, Dr. William Cotton, Joe Busto
• Date: 9/1/2005
• State: CO
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Scientific Study

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1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Weather Damage Modification Program

In August 2003, the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, Water
Conservation Board received a solicitation (No. 03-FC-81-0890) and a request
for proposal for the Weather Damage Modification Program for Cooperative
Weather Research between States and the U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau
of Reclamation. State government offerors had to be willing to cost-share 50%
or more of the project costs, as well as identify an existing operational program
that would allow the proposed research to be "piggy-backed" onto operational
cloud seeding activities. Federal funds could only be used for research
equipment, data collection, modeling, analysis, and reporting. The solicitation
specified that each state's basic proposal could not request a Bureau of
Reclamation (Reclamation) cost share in excess of $100,000.

The goal of the Weather Damage Modification Program (WDMP) was to
improve and evaluate physical mechanisms to limit damage due to weather
phenomena such as drought and hail, enhance water supplies through a regional
weather modification program, and to transfer validated technologies for
implementation on operational programs. The WDMP was designed to produce
those new technologies by funding scientific research proposals submitted by
state agencies having operational programs.

The Colorado Department of Natural Resources, Water Conservation
Board (CWCB) submitted a proposal for the state of Colorado. The proposal was
for a research project titled Numerical Simulations of Snowpack Augmentation for
Drought Mitigation Studies in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The proposed
research project was "piggy-backed" onto the Denver Water (OW) operational
winter orographic cloud seeding program in the central Colorado Rockies. The
project proposed to provide a physical evaluation of the OW operational program
by using the Colorado State University (CSU) Regional Atmospheric Modeling
System (RAMS). The CWCB and OW proposed to hire an experienced
meteorological consultant to assist in the project management, technical reviews,
and the reporting task. The proposal was successful and funded by a $100,000
grant Financial Assistance Agreement (No. 03-FC-81-0925) from Reclamation
dated 2 October 2003.

1.2 Project Administration and Management

The WDMP Grant received by the CWCB from Reclamation funded all of
the RAMS related research activities by the CSU team. All other costs (project
management, project administration, scientific and technical consultant, GIS
support, and operational cloud seeding activities) were covered by the CWCB
and OW, which more than met the Solicitation's 50-50 cost sharing requirement.