While Central Texans bake and sweat beneath a broiling sun, people elsewhere in the state are getting more rain than they normally would, thanks to science.
The meteorologist who leads the state’s cloud seeding program says the technique is increasing annual rainfall in parts of West and South Texas.
“South of San Antonio, we had aircraft flying on a dozen days in the month of July treating what we deemed to be seedable storms,” said George Bomar, the manager of the Weather Modification Program for Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation Department.
“(That) means that the storm lived longer and produced more rain over a larger area.”
Once part of the realm of fantasy, cloud seeding is now a routine and verifiable process.
“Seeding involves the release of a material that includes silver iodide whose crystalline structure is almost identical to natural ice,” said Bomar.
“When you introduce silver iodide crystals into a thunderstorm, a young thunderstorm that may only live 20 or 25 minutes and produce maybe a quarter of an inch, if you introduce those ice crystals early enough in the life of that cloud, more of the cloud water will be converted into tiny snow flakes which will then attract more cloud water to form rain drops.”
That process, though, is not on the horizon for Travis or other central Texas counties.
“I'm just not aware of that much interest here from decision makers,” Bomar said. “At one time there was state money available to help build these projects but that money has been used. And so now the burden of putting the program together would have to be born by regional or local interests such as county commissioners or ground water districts or aquifer authorities.”
Bomar, the author of a now out-of-print book entitled, Texas Weather, was interviewed on a KXAN News report this week on the day the city set a new record of 70 days during which the temperature hit the 100-degree mark or higher.
An extended interview with the meteorologist about cloud seeding can be found on this page.
Here's the original story about the new temperature record.
