Tpwma - Pecos, Texas (TX) TWMA - Home. Precipitation Enhancement « Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District. Precipitation enhancement or cloud seeding is a program to stimulate cumulus clouds to produce rainfall they would otherwise not produce. PGCD uses this method as part of our water conservation efforts, and annual reviews of our program by an independent Meteorologist for the last 11 years has shown that the program can produce up to an additional 10 percent of rainfall. Precipitation enhancement is accomplished through the introduction of seeding agents, such as silver iodide (AgI).
Silver Iodide is the agent used because it has a similar crystalline structure to ice, allowing it to induce freezing. Seeding takes place at the smooth, rain free base of the cloud where the updrafts are located. The updrafts carry the silver iodide to the super-cooled portion of the cloud. (See illustration) A similar illustration to precipitation enhancement is farmers fertilizing their crops in an effort to produce more yields from their crops. Want to be a rain gauge cooperator? Flight Tracks. Just-Clouds.com. Colorado Municipal Water District - Engineering - Weather Modification.
Since 1971, the Colorado River Municipal Water District has been conducting a Weather Modification (precipitation enhancement) Program on convective cloud systems in . As of the 2006 season, the Program is in its 33rd year of weather modification activities. The program objective is to increase precipitation (and therefore enhance surface water runoff) for the watershed of Lake J.B. Thomas and the E.V. Spence Reservoir. This is accomplished through aerial application of silver iodide. Meteorologist Ray Jones uses the District’s C-band radar installation to monitor promising cumulus clouds for the type of conditions conducive to silver iodide rain enhancement.
When cloud bases and tops are favorable, he directs the District’s pilot to fly into the cloud updraft to burn silver iodide flares. In addition to increasing precipitation and surface water runoff, the project has a by product of enhanced rainfall for agricultural and ranching communities in the target area. Cloud Seeding. Although nobody with any real credibility claims that cloud seeding works, that has not stopped many from trying.
In central Texas, they have been trying for more than 120 years. During an intense drought in the early 1890s, interest in rainmaking around San Antonio was high. Rainmaking practitioners had developed secret concoctions and were using artillery, ballons, kites, and towers to blast or expel particles and gaseous emissions into the heavens. The Brownsville Herald offered what they called a Sensible Suggestion: In 1934, the Associated Press described the effectiveness of some of the early rainmaking methods such as Dyrenforth's: Cloud seeding as we know it today got its start in 1946 when Dr. Vincent J. Another process, the "warm rain" process, usually involves clouds in tropical regions that never reach the freezing point. Also in 1971, a rainmaking program was started by the Colorado River Municipal Water District.
In January of 2012, Dr. SOAR. The TITAN software processes volume scan data from the SOAR 5cm radar recording a full volume scan in 3 minutes. The data allows analysis of different variables such as storm identification, location, area, volume, mass of precipitation, Vertically Integrated Liquid (VIL) as well as rates of variation of these parameters. Titan provides a tool for an appropriately trained meteorologist to quantify a seedable cloud appropriately.
The meteorologist usually undergoes a series of decisions that may be best characterized as: Nowcasting, decision time, qualification, treatment, maintenance and termination. 1) Nowcasting is when the meteorologist is monitoring the atmospheric conditions desirable for deep convection and seedable clouds to form. This decision is taken after studying the meteorological model output that forecast the prevailing thermodynamic conditions. 3) Qualification is when a cloud becomes seedable. 4) Treatment is the time after initial seeding. South Texas Weather Modification Association. Southwest Texas Rain Enhancement Association. West Texas Weather Modification Association.