WMOD00176

• Project Name: Annual Report
• Title: Seeding Operations & Atmospheric Research, 2005 Annual Report
• Prepared By: Duncan Axisia
• Date: 12/31/2005
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Report

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Conclusions and recommendations

Opportunities for future progress

Conclusions

The 2005 report demonstrates the progress that
SOAR has made in the past fOUf years. Starting
out as a cloud seeding operation with one
seeding aircraft. SOAR has expanded it
capabilities into the area of weather modification
research. During the past calendar year, SOAR
has participated in fOUf field projects while
maintaining continuous operation of its doud
seeding program in the Southern Ogallala target.
The interest in the area of weather modification
research is increasing. and requests fOf the
Cheyenne II doud physics aircraft are
encouraging,

In the appendices to this report, two evaluations
are presented. Appendix B presents an analysis
using rain gauge data from the National Climatic
Data Center (NCDC). The Oklahoma
Climatologically Survey conducted this analysis
for data between 1997 and 2003 with funds from
the Federal Bureau of Reclamation. The
methodology of the analysis is very simple and
straightforward. It has been discussed in this
report that rain gauges should not be used for
summer time precipitation evaluation. To
accomplish scientific ment. a rainfall analysis
should be supplemented by other data from
radar, satellite imagery and in-situ aircraft
measurements. Moreover. the validity of an
analysis using rain gauges depends on the
validity of the control areas. This report also
explains that an area may not qualify as a control
even though it abuts the seeded target. To
qualify as a control. the control area must be
shown that the rainfall in the -control~ area is
highly correlated (e.g.. linear correlation
coefficient> 0.70) with thaI in the "targer. In the

report provided by Brad IIIston, which has been
attached "as is" in appendix B. data for the
calculation of correlations are not shown.
Therefore. although the evaluation is sound in
methodology, and it appears that the selection of
the "control"" area is not downwind of the
predominant storm motion, the author is hesitant
to endorse this analysis without any knowledge
of precipitation correlation data between the
target and the control Assuming that correlation
data demonstrates that the target area and
control area are predictors of each other, the
analysis is encouraging in that it shows an
average precipitation increase of 48.9% over the
period 1997 to 2003.

Appendix C presents the 2005 analysis from
Active Influence and Scientific Management
(AISM). The methodology of this analysis has
been presented in ear1ier versions of this report
on numerous occasions, and is referred to as the
classical TITAN seeded vs. control. In this
analysis, a total of 33 clouds were seeded and
identified by TITAN in 18 operational days.
Corruption in data did not anow the evaluation for
4 operational days in July. 23 seeded clouds
were evaluated over New Mexico. and 10
seeded douds over Texas. This is a very small
data set, but the seeding opportunities during
2005 were not as numerous. and a large
percentage of the spring and ear1y summer
rainfall was nocturnal. The TITAN analysis shows
that the average precipitation increase was 1.4%
and 6.1% in Texas and New Mexico respectively.
It is also worth noting that 60% of the increase in
precipitation over Texas was due to doud
propagatIon from New Mexico.