WMOD00077 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

damaging hail and severe land erosion are normally relatively small in diameter compared to the overall storm diameter and represents a small part ~f the total area over which s~ch a cloud system will precipitate. When seeding severe thunderstorms to reduce storm intensities, these excessively high intensities tend to lower. When such storm intensities fall, the rainfall rate per hour translates directly into less rainfall per hour, providing more "useable" water to farmers and, therefore, les8 erosion. Severe storms produce amounts from 2.2 inches of rainfall per hour to more than 7 inches per hour according to National Weather Service NEXRAD algorithms. As an example, a storm labeled RExtreme" nas a roinimum core intensity of 57 dBZ units and would produce crop-d8l1ll19ing hail and rainfall on the order ot 7.1 inohes per hour resulting in high erosion potential. If the storm intensity could be lowered to, say, 50 dBZ through cloud seeding, then rainfall rates drop to, around 4.5 inches rainfall per hour and would be expected to cause much leas erosion. It must be remembered this seeding effect is intended only for the highly-intense storm core. It's important to ramember that properly seeded storms tend to continue longer before dissipation, and despite the resulting lower intensities, a greater amount of beneficial rainfall can spread over larger areas, Most seeding effects within, severe storms will tend to disappear within 45 minutes to one hour after ending seeding if seeded with silver iodide. ' In short, we attempt to ameliorate the destructive effects of excessive rainfall from vary-severe storms. By' radar-targeting storms' intensities, sizes, speeds and directions of movement we can be selective in determining which clouds to seed, when to begin seeding, when to stop and what our objective is on any given cloud system. 11, Insurance documents