A technique to get clouds to produce more snow is being used more as the Rocky Mountain region struggles with a two-decade drought.
LYONS, Colo. — Garrett Cammans and his brothers sometimes don't talk about their toughest moments on the job in the cloud seeding business, like the time when one of them got stuck in deep mountain snow and had to hike out alone in the dark.
Colorado has added three new programs in the last five years. Wyoming, which began seeding in 2014, added an aerial program in 2018. Utah has steadily increased its fleet of cloud seeding equipment, and the state legislature just approved record funding to further expand programs and research. But in the Rockies, cloud seeding these days has a full embrace from local and state officials eager for a not-too-expensive way to put more water in streams, rivers and especially the big Colorado River system reservoirs that hit record lows last year.
When the weather's dry and water's scarce in the West — where the saying goes that whisky's for drinking and water is for fighting over — those with water rights established long ago get preference. And divvying up increasingly limited water has pitted states against each other.Water providers in the Lower Colorado River Basin contribute about $1.5 million annually to cloud seeding in the Upper Basin, where snowmelt feeds the river. Recently, the federal government announced a $2.
A study of Idaho aerial seeding in 2017 revealed a clear snowfall pattern on a radar that mirrored the seeding and offered evidence the method works. “It’s really common for people to want to know what extra percent of precipitation formed,” said Tessendorf, a co-author of the Idaho cloud seeding study.
The right conditions — wet weather headed upslope, from the east — have occurred a couple times a month, said Scott Griebling, a water resources engineer with the district.
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