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Last modified
7/28/2009 2:33:58 PM
Creation date
3/5/2008 10:53:13 AM
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Weather Modification
Title
Summary of the NOAA/Utah Atmospheric Modification Program: 1990-1996
Date
9/1/1998
State
UT
Weather Modification - Doc Type
Report
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<br />SUMMARY <br /> <br />-. <br /> <br />A series offive aircraft missions tracked AgI and SF6 (simulated AgI releases) from valley and canyon <br />mouth sites used in the Utah operational seeding program. All flights took place in VFR conditions to <br />permit very low-level sampling over both mountainous terrain and within valleys. Each mission was <br />flown under atmospheric conditions typical of prefrontal conditions during winter storms. In fact, <br />snowfall was occurring at higher elevations during some sampling fljghts. <br /> <br />Four of the five aircraft missions found that real and simulated seeding material was transported along the <br />mountain barrier rather than over it, or the material was trapped by low-level stability and was drifting <br />about the valley. <br /> <br />The AgI and SF 6 were tracked over the Wasatch Plateau during part of one mission when the lower <br />atmosphere likely had neutral stability. Ice nucleus concentrations were estimated based on the largest <br />mean SF6 amount above the Plateau and the characteristics of the AgI generators used in Utah. It was <br />found that ice nucleus concentrations would be very limited at typical SL W temperatures in the prefrontal <br />storm phase. Acoustical counter measurements of IN supported this conclusion. Thus, even in the single <br />case where plumes were transported in the layer over the Plateau where SL W is known to concentrate, <br />resulting IN concentrations appeared inadequate for effective seeding. <br /> <br />The present seeding approach may be effective during other storm conditions than those sampled. For <br />example, the AgI may pool in the valleys for extended period and then be transported into the SL W region <br />in higher concentrations during frontal passage, a possibility that has not been adequately tested. <br />Unpublished observations from early March 1991 showed that storms with embedded convection <br />transported valley-released AgI to aircraft sampling levels well above the Plateau. It will be interesting to <br />analyze the resulting ice nucleus concentrations. <br /> <br />.- <br /> <br />The observations presented in this paper, together with those described in the Part I companion paper, <br />strongly suggest frequent ineffectiveness in current cloud seeding methods in Utah. Steps should be taken <br />to improve the frequency of targeting of the SL W region with AgI and to increase the concentration of <br />seeded crystals when the SL W region is targeted. The technology exists to do both. <br /> <br />Repeating the strong recommendation made in Part I: winter orographic cloud seeding projects should <br />follow Utah's example and physically examine their targeting ifthey have not done so already. This <br />question is too important to ignore. <br /> <br />1993 articles and papers: <br /> <br />8.6. Sassen, K., and H. Zhao, 1993: Supercooled liquid water clouds in Utah winter mountain storms: <br />cloud-seeding implications of a remote-sensing dataset. J. Applie1 Meteorology, 32, 1548-1558. <br /> <br />ABSTRACT. <br /> <br />A polarization lidar, dual-wavelength microwave radiometer, and radiosonde dataset from 19 winter <br />storms studied over the Tushar Mountains in the 1985 and 1987 Utah-NOAA cooperative weather <br />modification field campaigns are used to characterize embedded supercooled liquid water (SL W) clouds. <br />The findings show the dominance of barrier-level, mildly supercooled (0 0 to -10 oc) orographic clouds, <br />as identified by the lidar from a midbarrier field site. The combined lidar and radiometer (with liquid <br /> <br />44 <br />
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