WMOD00234

• Contract/Permit #: #93-5
• Applicant: Western Kansas Groundwater
• Project Name: Kansas Weather Modification
• Date: 1/1/1993
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Report

v. HAIL DISTRIBUTION

In Fia. 4 and Table 2 are shown the 1993 distribution of total
crop-hail damage insurance claims in Kansas for each county for
data received through Oct. 12, 1993. Any late claims received
after Oct. 12th most likely will be few and will appear revised in
next year's final report.

Fig. 4 shows 1993 crop-hail damage claims from all Kansas
counties except 3 counties in Eastern Kansas. Fig. 4 also shows
more counties in the western half of Kansas appearing to be hit
harder counties than in the eastern half of the state. Osborne
County, in Northcentral Kansas had the most claims at 1034 with
Sheridan County in Northwest Kansas running a close second at 1007.
The most claims for any WKWM target area county was Finney with
570---12th highest for most hail claims of any county in Kansas.

In previous years some WKWM counties have recorded higher
numbers of claims than the 570 reported by Finney in 1993, however,
1993 was a record year in terms of tot...l number of hail damage
claims reported for the WKWM target area as a whole for anyone
season in the past 19 years of WKWM Program operation. There were
3991 claims, more than twice the 1975 - 1992 (18-year) average of
1808. Also, the highest number of claims submitted in the Wh~M
target area for any day in the past 19 years occurred June 18th;
there were 959 claims---24% of the year's total.

For 1993 through the data cut-off date of Oct. 12th, hail
claims adjusters reported 70 hail-days within the WKWM target area
and 123 hail-days for the State of Kansas as a whole. April 30th
,was the only hail-day occurring in the WKWM target area prior to
'start-up May 1st, however, there were two hail-days in the target
area after the program ended...Sept. 17th and 18th. Sept. 18th was
particularly damaging and, with 345 claims submitted, it was the
second highest of the season.

The primary reasons 1993 was a year in which such high numbers
of hail claims appeared appear to be these:

(1) greater insuring of crops...we see a recurring pattern in
which farmers tend to increase the amount of crop insured when
their wheat crop prospects look very good early in the year---
as 1993 certainly did. Obviously, if equal amounts of hail
destruction occur in two different years, the year most
heavily insured would present the appearance of being a much
worse year for hail when in fact it wasn't, except for total
amount of crop value destroyed. This is one reason why we must
use hail claims numbers carefully when working with the data.

(2) more hail-days...70 hail-days were recorded inside the
WKWM target area in 1993, the most of any of the previous 18

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