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I I I I I I I I I I I I I \ I I I I I III. GENERAL OPERATIONS - PROJECT DESIGN The WKWMP originally was designed to be an operational cloud seeding effort to increase precipitation and reduce crop-damaging hail over participating counties in Western and Southwestern Kansas. Although the program objectives have not changed over the years, some design modifications have been made in order to accomplish its stated goals. The changes made have been due to technological innovations and the fact that we have grown much larger by expansion into Northwestern Kansas and Northeastern Colorado. Over the years we have been selective about employing certain technological improvements appearing from time to time due to limited annual budgets. However, 1995 was a watershed year. It was the year in which we were able to begin making significant long-term improvements in the program. This was made possible only because of major new funding sources coming from both the Kansas Water Office and from Groundwater Management District #3, located in Garden City. More history was made in 1997 with the addition to the WKWMP of NW Kansas GMD #4 and a portion of southeast Yuma County, Colorado. In 1997 a new radar site was installed in Colby which extended our radar coverage and seeding capability over Western Kansas from Nebraska to Oklahoma and into Eastern Colorado. More important was that this set the stage for a marked improvement in hail reduction and rain stimulation. This was enhanced further in 1998 with the addition of two more 'demonstration programs' in the Eastern Colorado counties south of Yuma County, namely, Kit Carson and Cheyenne. This not only allowed the WKWMP to seed wherever it most needed within those three Eastern Colorado counties, but also helped mitigate storms entering Kansas downwind from the Colorado demonstration areas. Fig. 3 shows the current WKWMP organizational structure and sources of funding. Despite the addition to the WKWMP of the new areas in Northwest Kansas and Eastern Colorado, the impact on our basic operational design has not significantly changed with the exception that for nearly a two-month period in 1998 hygroscopic flares were used to assist in our rainfall stimulation effort. All of our efforts up to this time has been focused on generating ice nucleating seeding agents which would activate within the supercooled region of "cold" clouds, whereas, hygroscopic seeding allows us to seed "warm" clouds, although "cold" clouds can be seeded as well. This change was brought about in response to the extreme lack of moisture prevailing in much of the WKWMP through June. This year's hygroscopic seeding effort was a special one-time event. It may be possible in the future we may wish to implement a program design change to include the use of hygroscopic flares. ' 11