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| 1920s rain dance, probably at the Prairie Band Potawatomi agency in Kanas (WIkipedia). |
Colorado ski areas and water managers keep employing rain-makers, but of the mechanical cloud-seeding variety, not the ritual variety, reports the
Summit Daily.
The concept of cloud seeding has been
around since the 1940s, when Bernard Vonnegut (brother of author Kurt)
discovered that silver iodide could produce ice crystals when introduced
into cloud chambers.
In those heady days, cloud seeding was
heralded as a way to produce rain where there was none, boosting crop
yields and filling reservoirs to the brim.
That was a wild overstatement, and cloud seeding's reputation suffered for it.
• • •
Western Weather Consultants claims that its two seeding operations in
the High Country generate between 180,00 and 300,000 added acre-feet of
water per year, and that has been backed up by independent studies.
That's pretty impressive.
Read the whole thing.
