WMOD00218

• Contract/Permit #: #97-3
• Applicant: Western Kansas Groundwater
• Project Name: Kansas Weather Modification
• Date: 1/1/1997
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Report

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I. BACKGROUND

Probably the first rain stimulation proposal reasonably based
upon science was by James P. Espy. In the AprilS, 1839 issue of
the National Gazette and Literary Register of Philadelphia, Espy
proposed building large fires to generate updrafts. He reasoned
that in a humid atmosphere cumulus clouds would eventually develop
and produce rain. There are no records indicating the scheme led
to any field trials, but in the 1880' s Congress did appropriate
$10,000 to conduct some field experiments based on an old, widely-
held idea that "it always rains after a battle". Afterward, tests
were performed with explosive charges carried aloft in balloons
with optimistic reports following. In. the 1930's work done by Tor
Bergeron and w. Findeisen led to the concept that clouds may
contain both supercooled water and ice crystals. This led further
to the concepts of "warm rain" and "cold rain" (See Section II).

Modern scientific cloud modification had its serious
beginnings in the late 1940s. In the General Electric Laboratories
at Schenectady, New York, scientists, Drs. Schaefer, Langmuir and
Vonnegut, used dry ice and silver iodide as ice nucleating agents
during early trials in the laboratory and field. The ice nucleating
agents for cloud seeding have changed with time, but most still use
formulations with silver iodide as one of their components. At
present the formulations used in Kansas are leading-edge of those
used in hail suppression programs worldwide.

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In 1972 the Kansas Legislature took a giant and progressive
step forward when- it enacted the Groundwater Management District
Act. The act enabled interested groups to form organizations to
implement'area water conservation programs for themselves. Western
Kansas Groundwater Management District #1 (WKGMD #1) thus became a
legal entity of the State of Kansas.

As Groundwater District supporters began identifying program
goals and specific objectives, an early objective was to organize,
design and implement an operational weather modification program to
seed convective clouds to increase rainfall and help alleviate the
losses of sub-surface water in Western Kansas. The decision to
implement. such a program came after thoroughly reviewing results
from the research program known as the Kansas Cumulus Project
(KANCUP) and from state-sponsored seeding programs being conducted
in North Dakota and South Dakota.

WKGMD #1 envisioned a perennially-supported program which.
covered a large area in Western Kansas and would operate during the
period in which crops were planted, grown and harvested. The
program objectives would be to:

(1) increase areal rainfall by seeding selected clouds in the

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