Cloud seeding 2
How well does cloud seeding work?
There was a study here in Idaho in 2017 specifically designed to prove whether cloud seeding with silver iodide works. It was called the Seeded and Natural Orographic Wintertime Clouds: The Idaho Experiment. Or the SNOWIE project, for short.
(Derek Blestrud, Id Power) “Throughout my time here, some of the most exciting and advanced developments that we've had was working on the SNOWIE project. It was the National Science Foundation project. And during that event, there was several different storms that we seeded that we may not have typically seeded, but since we were really trying to identify what is the best time to seed, we seeded some lesser producing storms. And with that, we got radar returns that showed the seeding signature in it. And this was the first time that it was recorded that you had a seeding event happen, and then you could see it on a radar image. It was pretty fun to watch university professors that have been looking at cloud seating for years, like some of them were 30 years plus, and they'd never seen that, and they're jumping up and down in the room. Getting that definite cloud seeding works image was pretty fun to see.”
Rates of increased snowfall after cloud seeding varies, but in Idaho generally averages around 10%. And the numbers show it’s more cost effective than efforts like building dams and reservoirs.
