Can Cloud Seeding Help Save California? (xpost from GD)

[KamaAina]

(Not conspiracy-these are facts from wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding

Cloud seeding is no longer considered a fringe science, and is considered a mainstream tool to improve rain precipitation and snow. New technology and research have produced reliable results that make cloud seeding a dependable and affordable water-supply practice for many regions.

The largest cloud seeding system in the world is that of the People's Republic of China, which believes that it increases the amount of rain over several increasingly arid regions, including its capital city, Beijing, by firing silver iodide rockets into the sky where rain is desired. There is even political strife caused by neighboring regions that accuse each other of "stealing rain" using cloud seeding.

In February 2009, China also blasted iodide sticks over Beijing to artificially induce snowfall after four months of drought, and blasted iodide sticks over other areas of northern China to increase snowfall. The snowfall in Beijing lasted for approximately three days and led to the closure of 12 main roads around Beijing. At the end of October 2009 Beijing claimed it had its earliest snowfall since 1987 due to cloud seeding.

In the United States, cloud seeding is used to increase precipitation in areas experiencing drought, to reduce the size of hailstones that form in thunderstorms, and to reduce the amount of fog in and around airports. In the summer of 1948, the usually humid city of Alexandria, Louisiana, under Mayor Carl B. Close, seeded a cloud with dry ice at the municipal airport during a drought; quickly .85 inches of rainfall occurred.

Cloud seeding is occasionally used by major ski resorts to induce snowfall. Eleven western states and one Canadian province (Alberta) have ongoing weather modification operational programs . In January 2006, an $8.8 million cloud seeding project began in Wyoming to examine the effects of cloud seeding on snowfall over Wyoming's Medicine Bow, Sierra Madre, and Wind River mountain ranges.

A number of commercial companies offer weather modification services centered on cloud seeding.

The U.S. signed an international treaty in 1978 banning the use of weather modification for hostile purposes

It has been used by US military like in Vietnam:

Operation Popeye's goal was to increase rainfall in carefully selected areas to deny the Vietnamese enemy, namely military supply trucks, the use of roads by:

Softening road surfaces
Causing landslides along roadways
Washing out river crossings
Maintain saturated soil conditions beyond the normal time span.

It has been used by British military:

The military were controlling the weather for several reasons, as detailed in the minutes of an Air Ministry meeting held on 3 November 1953. They included:

"bogging down enemy movement";
"incrementing the water flow in rivers and streams to hinder or stop enemy crossings";
clearing fog from airfields.

which just might have resulted in major flooding:

On 16 August 1952 a severe flood occurred in the town of Lynmouth in north Devon. Nine inches (229 millimetres) of rain fell within twenty-four hours: "Ninety million tonnes of water swept down the narrow valley into Lynmouth" and the East Lyn River rose rapidly and burst its banks. Thirty-five people died and many buildings and bridges were seriously damaged. According to the BBC, "North Devon experienced 250 times the normal August rainfall in 1952." (sounds like Texas?)

A conspiracy theory has circulated that the flood was caused by secret cloud seeding experiments conducted by the Royal Air Force.

Why isn't cloud seeding being used in California?

And although this person was probably joking.....the question should be asked....

Is Texas cloud seeding, quite possible stealing rain from California as is happening in China?

I think somehow in Texas we managed to steal the water from California
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026630164

h/t J_J_

[Cleita]

1. We probably should when we have good clouds like we had this month.

I kept thinking because the cloud cover we had was close to rain clouds that the state or county should seed them to make them rain, but the clouds dissipated and now there are only wisps in the sky. But we do go months with cloudless skies. So then what?

A friend of mine insists that stuff is being sprayed in the sky to prevent rain. I considered it far fetched, but Texas stealing our clouds by seeding does start to make her theory more plausible.

[KamaAina]

2. Does she have any idea what stuff that might be?

[Cleita]

7. She thinks it's some kind of chemicals but frankly I was wearing

the same tin foil hat because I couldn't imagine why anyone would do it if it were possible. But if someone is using our clouds for rain to fall in their state, and they have the technology and science to do it, it makes a little more sense.

[KamaAina]

3. Actually, coastal regions get lots of fog from spring through fall

and the Central Valley gets really thick tule fog (think pileups on 5) during winter. So most of the time, someplace in the state has cloud cover.

[Cleita]

6. We do get fog, but these were rain clouds up in the sky not at ground level.

[pinto]

9. Texas can't "steal" our clouds. Weather patterns generally move west to east.

Texas sees a west coast low pressure system days after it has already passed over us.

[Cleita]

10. I was just repeating what was in the article as a maybe if scenario. I certainly didn't take it

as gospel truth. Is my English too vague?

[pinto]

11. Ah, got it. Misread.

[petronius]

13. A problem for the Central Coast is that even when we have those solid

cloud layers, they're not well developed vertically. Cloud seeding works in parts of clouds where the temperature is below freezing; I'm not sure that much of our stratiform night-and-morning low cloud has the depth to provide a lot of room for seeding to work...

[Xipe Totec]

4. We could use a little roundup on the Texas cloud seeds. nt

[KamaAina]

5. Hell, Tom Steyer could probably fund this himself.

Why wait for gummint?

[antiquie]

8. California has been seeding clouds for at least six decades.

Cloud seeding, no longer magical thinking, is poised for use this winter 11/11/2013
Once viewed by some as a fringe science, cloud seeding has entered the mainstream as a tool to pad the state’s crucial mountain snowpack. New technology to manage the practice, and research that points to reliable results, have cemented cloud seeding as a dependable and affordable water-supply practice.

“The message is starting to sink in that this is a cost-effective tool,” said Jeff Tilley, director of weather modification at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, which practices cloud seeding in the Lake Tahoe Basin and eastern Sierra Nevada. “The technology is better; we understand how to do cloud seeding much better. And because we know how to do it more effectively, it’s definitely taken more seriously.”

Precipitation Enhancement Water Plan 2013

[antiquie]

12. The laser that can make it rain:

Researchers unveil radical system to start storms and create lightning on command
Technique uses a 'double laser' to stimulate particles within a cloud
Could one day be used to create rainstorms and even lighting on command

Scientists think they can control weather with lasers

[KamaAina]

14. I used to wonder, especially in my NOLA days, if we could capture lightning

for electricity.