Demand for cloud-seeding to boost rainfall is skyrocketing across the Western U.S. and Mexico to mitigate increasing periods of extreme drought and a warming climate
amid a warming climate and periods of extreme drought.It is a cheaper alternative to big-ticket technological solutionsMike Blake/ReutersCloud-seeding programs to boost both rain and snowfall are now under way in Texas, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, New Mexico and California.
For West Texas farmer Steve Williams, the benefits of occasional extra rainfall is worth the minimal amount he pays in taxes to his local water district that are earmarked for cloud seeding, about $20 a year.Williams and his son farm 1,774 acres of cotton and wheat in one of six counties covered by the aerial seeding flights from the West Texas Weather Modification Association in San Angelo.
Military pilots fly through a hailstorm to inject a liquid silver iodide mixture into a storm above Mexico. Most cloud-seeding efforts use particles of silver iodide which have a crystal structure similar to ice.Project coordinator of the team looks by the window locating clouds above the state of México they could spread silver iodide liquid into.He checks how much silver iodide liquid is left inside storage tank of the aircraft.
A single-engine aircraft flies over Texas, injecting cloud-seeding particles of silver iodide into clouds from a row of flares. Video: Jonathan Jennings; Ilana Panich-Linsman for The Wall Street Journal In the summer, cloud-seeding firms use the water-attracting properties of salt crystals such as calcium chloride to do the same thing, except in warmer, humid clouds.View of the pilot's radar indicating in green the areas rain is successfully falling.Inside a small office at the San Angelo Regional Airport, Jonathan Jennings, a project meteorologist for the West Texas Weather Modification Association, monitors storms in order to send his pilots up to seed clouds.
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