WMOD00097

• Applicant: Western Kansas Groundwater Management
• Project Name: Cloud Seeding
• Date: 5/1/1989
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Report

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VII. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

It is difficult to make any new pronouncements about what has
been achieved on the WKWM Program since last year's Final Report was
written. However, a few comments can be made:

First, this year was a difficult one for most farmers in terms of
rainfall. Generally, along with most of the rest of the grain
producing parts of the Midwest, much of our region was greatly lagging
in rainfall going into May 1989, Beginning in early May rain fell
over widespread areas of the target area averting a totally disastrous
wheat harvest and bringing bountiful .rainfall primarily to corn, milo,
soybeans, hay and other crops. We felt the WKWM Program had a
strongly beneficial effect on many occasions in helping to alleviate
the rainfall shortage in many areas of the target area, probably more
than will ever be known,

With rainfall, we still cannot say exactly how well we have done.
A problem being encountered to make our rainfall stimulation program
more credible at higher levels of government appears to be one of
expectancy not reality: If one has been told previously to expect a
10% increase in rainfall but cannot "substantiate" a large-area
increase of 8%, 5% or 2% additional precipitation (or can't find a
change at all), one may feel cheated. Instead of finding out why the
results aren't better, there is a mistaken tendency to blindly accept
the idea" ."it doesn't work".

We contend that some past evaluational hypotheses were flawed from
the outset and destined not to find much. Based upon the limited
aircraft capability of OUr program, it is unrealistic to believe our
hail suppression efforts would be successful without obtaining some
degree of success from our rainfall stimulation seeding---they both
work the same way! Competent research has shown, in fact, that cloud
seeding to increase rainfall---the way we perform it---does work.

VIII. RECOMMENDATIONS

J

Among last year's recommendations were: (1) acquiring capability
to view satellite pictures of 'clouds on a nearly real-time basis, and
(2) digitizing the radar. Although these items were unable to taken
care of for the 1989 season, the WKWM Program has been authorized
funding by the WKGMD #1 Board of Directors to upgrade our computer
capability in order to be able to do so in 1990. Fortunately for us,
as computers have become faster and better, prices for the same models
have continued falling with time.

In addition to the capability to acquire satellite. images and
display digitized radar information, the computer system will also
give us the added capabilities of being able to import general daily
weather data for forecasting and to perform data and word processing.
There is no doubt that the computer will be the "heart" of our overall
future operational program and vitally important.

Two recommendations are suggested as a follow-up to the Results
and Conclusions section in last year's Final Report (Section VIII).
First, in that section some of the problems were briefly addressed
concerning the validity of the evaluations previously performed on