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<br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />, <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br /> <br />I. BACKGROUND <br /> <br />Probably the first rain stimulation proposal reasonably based upon science was by James P. <br />Espy. In the AprilS, 1839 issue of the National Gazette and Literary Register of Philadelphia, <br />Espy proposed building large fires to generate updrafts. He reasoned that in a humid atmosphere <br />cumulus clouds would eventually develop and produce rain. There are no records indicating the <br />scheme led to any field trials, but in the 1880's Congress did appropriate $10,000 to conduct .some <br />field experiments based on an old, widely-held idea that "it always rains after a battle". Afterward, <br />tests were performed with explosive charges carried aloft in balloons and optimistic reports <br />followed. In the 1930s work done by Tor Bergeron and W. Findeisen led to the concept that <br />clouds may contain both supercooled water and ice crystals. This led further to the concepts of <br />"warm rain" and "cold rain" (See Section IT). <br /> <br />Modem scientific cloud modification had its serious beginnings in the late 1940s in the <br />General Electric Laboratories at Schenectady, New York. There the scientists, Drs. Schaefer, <br />Langmuir and Vonnegut, used dry ice and silver iodide as ice nucleating agents during in these <br />early laboratory and field trial. The ice nucleating agents for cloud seeding have changed with <br />time, Most seeding agents in use today to suppress hail continue to use formulations with silver <br />iodide as one of their components. Presently, formulations used in Kansas are leading-edge <br />materials within the industry. <br /> <br />In 1972 the Kansas Legislature took a giant and progressive step forward when it enacted <br />the Groundwater Management District Act. The act enabled interested groups to organize to <br />implement area water conservation programs for themselves. Western Kansas Groundwater <br />Management District #1 (WKGMD #1) thus became a legal entity of the State of Kansas. <br /> <br />, <br /> <br />As Groundwater District supporters began identifying program goals and specific <br />objectives, an early objective was to organize, design and implement an operational weather <br />modification program to seed convective clouds to increase rainfall and help alleviate the losses of <br />sub-surface water in Western Kansas. The decision to implement such a program came after <br />thoroughly reviewing results from the research program known as the Kansas Cumulus Project <br />(KANCUP) and from state-sponsored seeding programs being conducted in North Dakota and <br />South Dakota. <br /> <br />WKGMD #1 envisioned a perennially-supported program covering a large area in Western <br />Kansas which would operate during the p~riod in which crops were planted, grown and harvested. <br />The program objectives would be to: <br /> <br />(1) increase areal rainfall by seeding selected clouds in the absence of severe or potentially <br />severe weather <br /> <br />(2) decrease the occurrence of crop-damaging hail by seeding potentially severe storms <br /> <br />1 <br />