WMOD00390

• Title: A Proposed Wintertime Weather Modification Research Program for Colorado
• Date: 1/1/1980
• State: CO
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Report

Detailed seeding suspension criteria are presented in Appendix C.
During the operation of a program of this size and importance,
it would be advisable to have coordination with the Colorado
State Highway Patrol, the Division of wildlife and the U.S. Forest
Service on a routine basis during any seeding activities and
possibly with the Department of Agriculture during the late fall
and springtime periods.

e. Randomized Seeding Operations and Documentation of Seeding
Activities - The favorable input from the opportunity recog-
nition in terms of the seeding criteria discussed in Section IV.
B.2.a and the operational seeding unit discussed in Section IV.B.
2.d becomes the basis for determining the next phase of operations
to seed or not to seed. In order to generate a comparative data
base upon which to evaluate the results of the seeding operations
in this program, a randomization scheme will be derived that
allows two out of every three seedable weather units to be seeded
and one left unseeded. It is not necessary that randomization
involve equal numbers of seeded and non-seeded units; it has been
suggested by the Weather Modification Advisory Boardl (Page 46)
that an acceptable split of 1/3 non-seeded, 2/3 seeded would
result in little loss on evaluation accuracy. It is estimated
that after several events have been dropped because of the sus-
pension criteria being met, approximately 33 seedable weather units
would occur during an average l67-day operational season (November
10 thru April 25). Applying the optimized seeding and operational
criteria presented here, the water and recreational interests
participating in this program should realize adequate precipitation
augmented potential from the estimated 22 seeding events. At the
same time, the program evaluators will have a sufficient base of
non-seeded events to perform a credible evaluation from the total
data base gathered over the proposed seven-year period.
During prolonged periods of below average precipitation and
potential drought situations, it is recommended that consideration
be given to temporarily suspend the randomization of seeding events
and optimally seed all suitable weather situations. Two situations

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