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Recommendation: Staff gives a low recommendation for funding of this project because flood protection is the section's main responsibility, . 6. Simulations of Cloud Seeding in Colorado Beneficiary/Grantee/Contractor: Colorado State University Amount of Request: $26,110 Ranking: Low Product Produced: This project is designed to model one of the weather modification programs in Colorado today, The contractor for most of Colorado operational programs is Larry Hjermstad and he is eager to work with CSU and others to bridge the gap in understanding between the scientific and operational community, Mr, Hjermstad is also seeking funding from Denver Water, Vail Resorts and other water users for collaboration on this project. The mission of this project will be to use C,S,U.'s Meteorological Department's RAMS model to estimate the gains from cloud seeding operations to help quantify the amounts that are produced, Water Planning Relationship: One of the key understanding issues with cloud seeding is not ifit works but trying to quantify in more certain terms how well it works, With the advent of new programs started this year it's an opportunity to use modeling efforts in the San Juan Mountains, Recommendation: Staff gives a low recommendation for funding of this project because flood protection is the section's main responsibility. 7. Community Collaborative Rain and Hail Study . Beneficiary/Grantee/Contractor: Amount of Request: Colorado State University $10,000 Ranking: Low Product Produced: Presentation to the CWCB Board, Annual Report of Operations, and the development of a statewide network of rain gages where the data is available daily from the web site, CSU posts daily precipitation maps for every day since the June 1998 availability over the web site. New counties that have been added to the program are Park, Summit and Grand County. There is a strong presence in the Front Range areas including Jefferson, Douglas, Arapahoe and Elbert and Lincoln County. CSU Rain gages have a small presence in Lake County and Eagle County also, The NWS Grand Junction office is offering in-kind support to develop the network of gages on the western slope. There have been 1200 gages distributed to date, In February 2003 there have been 400 active observers and that number doubles in the summer to approximately 800 observations for rainfall events. Participation involves sending the observed data to the website or calling a Denver, Fort Collins, Greeley and Brush phone line. Kevin Stuart of the UDFCD uses this data as a ground truthing and quality assurance for their automated rain gages along the Front Range, Other funding comes from NWS Grand Junction, UDFCD, Soil Conservation Districts of Eastern Colorado, City of Fort Collins Utilities, U.S, Department of Agriculture and Northern Colorado WCD. . Water Planning Relationship: The CWCB granted the CSU - Colorado Climate Center an initial $5,000 last year (2002) to help CSU leverage a large grant from the National Science Foundation for the development of a statewide network of rain gages and this would be a continuation of that funding, Malcolm Wilson of the BOR is very supportive of this program, as water managers in the Colorado River Basin need a better spatial distribution of rainfall data and additional sources of data to assist in resource allocation decisions, This network of gages can compliment NRCS SNOTEL, National Weather Service and Stream gage data to help forecasters and water managers, In the Upper Colorado River Basin this additional data can assist in the determination of volume and peak flows for water management issues, 13