Randomized Seeding of Orographic Cumuli, 1957: Part II

Abstract

During July and August 1957, orographic cumuli over the Santa Catalina Mountains of southeastern Arizona were seeded from an airplane with silver iodide. The experimental design of the program involved the randomized seeding by pairs of days; one of two days with suitable clouds was seeded on a random basis. On seven pairs of days, observations were made of the cumuli with a pair of K-17 cameras on a 1.3 mi baseleg. At the same time, radar observations were made with a 3-cm vertically-scanning radar set. On the basis of the analysis of the camera and radar observations an investigation has been made of the occurrence of precipitation as a function of cloud size and temperature. It was found that there is a large variability in cloud behavior from year to year. Natural clouds in the arid southwest do not produce precipitation until their vertical thicknesses are of the order of at least 8 to 10,000 feet. From a comparison of seeded and non-seeded clouds it appears that the silver iodide particles may have produced changes in the precipitation formation mechanisms in orographic cumuli.