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<br />I <br />\ <br />I <br /> <br />FOREI'lORD <br /> <br />The Western Kansas Weather Modifcation Program (WKWMP) <br />recently finished its 19th consecutive seasonal operations in <br />a"Ctempting to increase rainfall and reduce crop-damaging hail <br />through cloud seeding. For the second year running, those counties <br />par"Cicipating in 1993 were the original 12 counties comprising the <br />WKWMP in 1975, plus Ford County. <br /> <br />, <br /> <br />If crop-hail insurance damage claims are any indication of the <br />kind of year it was, then hail damage to crops in 1993 tells it <br />all. 1993 had the highest of any year of the 19 seasons of wrovM <br />operation and,June 18th had the record number of claims of any day <br />since 1975. The early prospects of higher crop yields, prices and <br />quality in 1993 most likely triggered greater than usual amounts of <br />hail insurance to be written for wheat and may have extended to <br />other crops as well, we will not know all we need to know about <br />1993 crop-hail insurance data for several months. Al though it <br />appears there was much greater than average hail damage to wheat <br />crops in 1993, media reports indicate wheat production was better <br />than average. Interestingly, despite some devastating hail in June, <br />especially June 18th, most of the wheat harvest period was <br />relatively rain-free, almost ideal harvest weather. <br /> <br />Untimely severe storms caused significant hail damage on April <br />30th, just prior to program operations beginning, and very heavy <br />damage Sept. 18th, three days after operations ended. <br /> <br />This report summarizes the operational activities of the 1993 <br />WKWM Program season, updates previous summaries and revises any <br />errors found in previous reports. Also shown are analyses of the <br />growing season regional rainfall data supplied to us by over 100 <br />volunteer observers in and around the liKWM target area and obtained <br />from National Weather Service station observations, both first <br />order and second order. <br /> <br />Also given is a recap of the 8-year period, 1985 - 1992, for <br />the participating WKWM counties with respect to farm economics and <br />crop-hail insurance statistics for the same period. Despite yearly <br />hail damage to crops, long-term benefit-to-cost ratios show very <br />positive return flowing back to the sponsor of the WKWM Program. <br />