Cloud seeding set to end next month

The five-year study investigating the impact of seeding storm clouds in the Snowy Range and Sierra Madre Mountains will come to an end next month.

During the Upper North Platte Valley Water Users Association’s annual meeting last week, Barry Lawrence, project manager for the Wyoming Water Development Commission, said the study would end April 30.

“This was our final year of the project, and we can expect to get final report to the state by Dec. 31,” Lawrence said.

Around 60 people, including ranchers, irrigators and members of Trout Unlimited and the Saratoga-Encampment-Rawlins Conservation District (SERCD) were in attendance at the annual meeting, which took place March 10 at the Platte Valley Community Center.

The goal of the cloud seeding study is to see if pumping silver iodide crystals into passing storm clouds from 16 mountaintop generators will increase snow pack, and ultimately stream flows after the snow melts. Lawrence said previous studies suggested a 10 to 15 percent snowpack increase in the target areas.

According to Weather Modification Incorporated Meteorologist Dan Gilbert, who has worked on the project for five years, eight generators are in the Medicine Bow Mountains, while the other eight are in the Sierra Madres. During a February demonstration for Platte Valley elementary school students, Gilbert and fellow WMI Meteorologist Brad Waller showed how to tell if the weather is appropriate for cloud seeding or not.

During the demonstration, Gilbert released a weather balloon with an attached radiosonde, which detected weather conditions and transmitted them to a computer.

Lawrence told the group at the PVCC that with the study ending, the generators would be dismantled and moved this summer, possibly to the Wind River Range, where other cloud seeding generators are already in place. Gilbert said there are 10 generators placed in the Wind River Range.

“There are eight in the Med Bows and eight in the Sierra Madres, and 10 up in the Wind River Range,” he said. “They’re all at different angles to the wind, so we can hit from many different wind directions.”

Joe Glode said the purpose of last week’s meeting was to inform the public as best as possible on the cloud seeding process.

“We’d like to have the general public aware of the cloud seeding and the state’s involvement in water planning,” he said. “We want to try to keep the members, irrigators and interested parties aware of the developments in the last 12 months. We’d like to keep them all involved and aware because water tends to be a confusing thing anyway, and a lot of people just can’t wrap their minds around it. If we can keep it kind of current and simple, maybe they can get an idea of what’s going on.”

Lawrence said results of the study showing possible snow pack increase would be available sometime early next year.

“The consultants have until the end of the year, and the results will be released the first quarter of 2015.”