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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WESTERN KANSAS WEATHER MODIFICATION
NEWSLETTER 94 - 4

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FOR THE PERIOD MAY 22 - MAY 28, 1994

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REST: Recently, We8te~n Kansas Groundwater Management
District #1 (Scott City) made the decision to pursue an expansion
of its rain guage network which operates over much of Western and
Southwestern Kansas. We anticipate that an expansion of the network
will have a beneficial long-term impact on the area's management of
water resources. Also, it has the potential to help improve our
cloud seeding operational efficiency for increasing rainfall and
reducing hail.

The current network now comprises about a hundred reporters
and has bean operating since 1980. Over the pa~t few years we have
had some natural attrition but, overwhelmingly, they have been a
loyal and steadfast group during this time. They have been a source
of excellent rainfall data and of other weather information which
comes only from maki,ng noteworthy comments on their monthly report.
They deserve considerable eredi t and recognt tion for their enduring
efforts over the years. We are highly grateful to them and
sincerely thank them very much.

To help move our expansion forward, we've asked a gentleman
with some 40 years experience in weather to assist us on a limited
basis during the summer. Mr. Sam Gardner, from Garden City, has had
. experience as an Air Force weather forecaster. and as a weather
, radar operator for the National WaathA,J:' Service. It will be his job
to seek out new reporters to II filJ i.n the gaps" in our present
rainfall reporter network, to run the network and to handle the
data. We expect that it will takA roost of the summer. to find more
reporters and wor}c aut any bugs whicl1. tnay su,r.face.

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OPERATIONS (All times are CDT):

MAY 22nd. OPERATIONAL DAY #9: A combi-nation of afternoon surface
heating and outflows from severe storms in the Texas panhandle
appeared to trigger new severe storms into being in the Oklahoma
panhandle, southeast Colorado and extreme southwestern Kansas.
Storm movements were to the north-northwest affecting tbe target
area counties of Stanton and Hamilton.

At 3:25 p.m. all cloud base aircraft were scrambled to new
storms moving toward southwestern Hamilton County and southwestern
Stanton. The cloud top aircraft was scrambled at 3:~7 p.m. Seeding
for hai.l began in southWestern Hamilton at 3:47 p.m. with a second
plane joining at 3:55 p.m. Another aircraft began seeding in
southwestern Stanton at 4:10 p.m. and the last one near Big Bow at
4:22 p.m. The plane seeding Southwest Stanton ended at 4138 p.m.
then it went to a new storm a few miles south of Coolidge which had
intensified into an E-W line and merged with older seeded storms