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<br />e <br /> <br />e <br /> <br />e <br /> <br />.,. .",", <br /> <br />WEATHER MODIFICATION RESEARCH IN TEXAS <br />An Overview for 2003 <br /> <br />Sponsorship <br /> <br />The State of Texas, through the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR), will participate in <br />the U, S, Bureau of Reclamation's Weather Damage Modification Program, through a 1-year grant agrel'ment <br />awarding Texas a total of $450,000 in Federal grant funds, To qualify for the grant monies, TDLR had to show an <br />equivalent amount of State/local funds being invested in operational rain-enhancement activities, (It is estimated <br />that State and regional governmental entities in Texas will expend some $4.2 million to conduct rain-enhancement <br />operations within some 48 million acres of Texas this year.) <br /> <br />Goal <br /> <br />Participation in BOR's research program is aimed at improving and evaluating the physical mechanisms <br />that can be employed on convective clouds to limit damage caused by weather phenomena such as drought and <br />hail. More specifically, for Texas the goal is to develop and demonstrate cloud-modification technologies for <br />enhancing rainwater supplies through a regional weather,modification research program, and then to transfer the <br />validated technologies to non-Federal interests for operational implementation, <br /> <br />Participants <br /> <br />Interests in the states of New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas will participate in the planned research, <br />Through an interagency agreement with the Oklahoma Water Resource Board (OWRB), the TDLR will rely upon <br />researchers in the vicinity of Oklahoma City to pursue two of the project's three primary objectives (identified below <br />as Nos, 1 and 2), The third objective, to deploy an instrumented aircraft for measurement of cloud properties for a <br />4-6 week period in Aug-Sept., will be based at a rain-enhancement project in the Texas South Plains, <br /> <br />Specific Objectives <br /> <br />Atmospheric scientists and climatologists will focus on the fOllowing three primary objectives: <br /> <br />1. Analyze a number of past cloud-seeding events (both rain-enhancement and hail-suppression) using a <br />combination of rain-gage and weather-radar observations in mosaic format for those areas of northwest <br />Texas and western Oklahoma where a dense, "meso-net" of surface weather-observing stations exists, <br /> <br />2. Derive a storm-cell climatology of precipitation types, intensities, and duration for the southern <br />U, S, Great Plains region using meso-net surface weather data and combinations of Doppler (NEXRAD) <br />weather-radar data, <br /> <br />3, Conduct a series of aircraft missions during which an instrumented airplane will make cloud penetrations in <br />order to map the concentrations of cloud liquid water, ice particles, and c1oud,condensation nuclei (eCN). <br /> <br />What is learned from these various efforts to "map" the potential of seedable convective towers will help <br />cloud-seeding project meteorologists apply the appropriate treatment of either glaciogenic (silver iodide) or <br />hygroscopic (salts) seeding agents during weather-modification operations, <br />