WMOD00174

• Contract/Permit #: #95-5
• Applicant: Western Kansas Groundwater
• Project Name: Kansas Weather Modification
• Date: 1/1/1995
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Report

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OPERATIONS (All times given ate COT):

AUGUsT"23rd/24t~ - OI?E~TIONAL DAY #46/#47: Intense afternoon
surface heating plus higher moisture made oonditions favorable for
severe storm development late in the afternoon east ot our target
area. At 5:55 p.m. planes began being scrambled to SOUle of the
storms near Lane County, however, befor~ planes could reach that
area, a new hail-bearing storm complex built near D1ghton. Seeding
for hail began on it at 6:27 p.m. Although the storm was
oollapsing, some rain stimulation was continued on weak updrafts
from 6:39 p.m. until 6:57 p.m. Another aircraft also seeded tor
rain stimulation in Lane between 6:46 and 6:57 p.m.

After,~ ~hort while there was a lull in'n~~ cloud development
and two planes were sent back to its' bases; one performed. brief
rain stimulation in north-central Greeley county bet~een 7:18 and
7:23 p.w., but it also was rapidly dissipating and the seeding
plane then returned to its base.

By 7: 53 the one remaining plane found updrafts 1n which to
begin seeding a new storm oomplex developing near Kalvesta. By
1:58 p.m. another new storm began near the area 1n which the first
seeded complex lay in Lane County. The two other cloud base planes
were scrambled at 8:06 and 8:33 p.m., respectively, as more severe
storms grew in southern and extreme northeastern Lane and eas~Brn
Finney counties. Seeding began at 8:25 p.m. on one storm near the
Lane/Finney County line south-southwest of Dighton about 15 miles.
A secon~ aircraft also assisted in seeding the storm beginning at
8:36 p.m. Cloud base updrafts were unusually hard to locate on
just about all storms seeded during the entire operation this day.
This cloud dissipated soon after seeding started so one of the
planes was sent to eastern Finney County where it began seeding
near Kalvesta, joined by another plane at 9:15 p.m. A third plane
began seeding a separate storm in northeastern Gray County at 9:15
p.m. New cloud growth would eventually fill in between this
separate storm and the Kalvesta storm. Storm movements were
generally southeasterly to south-southeasterly. A large gust front
eventually pushed in a large arc to the southwest from the storm
complexes in Lane and Finney counties. As the gust front passed
into Finney, Gray, Haskell, Grant, Kearny, Hamilton and Stanton,
new storms developed above it.

The fourth cloud base plane was airborne at 9:25 p.m. and went
to central Lane County where it began seeding about 10 miles eAst
of Oighton ~nd was joined by one of the planes previously seeding
in eastern ~inney. Rain augmentation was performed in central Ford
County from 10:11 to 10:52 p.m., prior to severe storms developing
over the gust front which was moving as mentioned above. One plane
ran ~ut of fuel and had to land; the others soon began running law
on seeding agent. severe storms later built in Ford County and
above the gust front in southern Finney, Grant, Haekell, and Gray
counties with seeding being done in each area---frequently limited
to one or two aircraft per storm. Storm updrafts were difficult to