WMOD00058

• Contract/Permit #: #98-1
• Applicant: Western Kansas Groundwater Management
• Project Name: Western Kansas Weather Modification Program
• Date: 4/28/2001
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Report

~
]
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I

From the weather modification standpoint on May 27th: After nearly two hours of seeding
we were eventually overwhelmed by the total numbers of new severe storms forming and those in
progress at the same time planes were running out of seeding agent. Furthermore, as a result of
the unusual weather complications existing at the same time, planes were prevented from getting
turned around for second flights as only one airport was usable out of the 6 airports at which our
aircraft are based. .

On the 27th we found ourselves more at the mercy of "chaotic" effects than normal.
Nothing short of a doubling or tripling of aircraft numbers this date could have averted most of
the hail damage experienced.

-- end of newsletter -

It turned out we did have significant hail again two days later, on May 29th, Although
only slightly less intense, it was nonetheless the second worst day of damage day to our target
area (346 claims) and 4th worst day for the State of Kansas in 2001 with 465 claims,

I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I

Another unknown is how much crop insurance has been purchased out of the total amount
of crops that are grown each year? A major drawback to using crop-hail damage numbers is that
the date given for the hail occurrence occasionally is incorrect coming from adjusters. Some
years this inaccuracy is worse than others. Part of the problem causing this discrepancy occurs
when storms occur at night and/or on weekends if the farmer is absent from his farm. Damage
also can be incorrectly reported as having occurred on the next day's date, or vice versa, when
damage occurs after midnight when it really might have happened before midnight. If a farmer
happens to be away from the farm when hail occurs, he may have to guess at the date, in which
case he may be wrong. When viewing Table I (pg, 25), which lists the hail claims submitted
along with the days we were seeding clouds, we notice there are several days in which claims
were submitted for which no flying was performed, Most often they are for very few claims,
Sometimes there are the storms that do form, grow and die before we can get to them and other
times there are storms that are not seeded due to weather circwnstances or judgment regarding
likelihood of reaching a storm before it leaves the area, This year some 24 claims were submitted
on 2 days after Sept. 11th, while we were "grounded" and we could not fly. But, for whatever
reason, all claims eventually end up as a statistic, This year there were 15 days with 147 hail
claims submitted in which no seeding was done during that day for whatever reason, nor had any
observation flights been made, accounting for 8% of the total number of claims,

A significant increase in hail claims occurred in 2001 for both the WKWMP and the State
of Kansas when compared to last year. The year-over-year claims increased 27% for the State
and nearly 61 % for the WKWMP when Gove County is taken out consideration and comparing
the old 13-county area in 2001 to the same area in 2000, Table 4, on page 33, shows the claims
history for the WKWMP target area since its beginning in 1975 and ranks chronologically the
seasonal claims nwnbers for our target. The 1,824 claims this year ranks 11 th least in our 27-year
history, Ranking the year by number of claims leaves a little to be desired as discussed earlier,
but we still do it. Target area boundaries can change from year to year, aircraft numbers flying on

31