Do n’t be too prompt to give thanks El Niño for the last undulation of storms that hallow the West Coast with swamped reservoirs , fill again snowpack , andspectacular bally palm Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree . sprain out that El Niño had a picayune help — hastiness was increase by an estimated 15 percent thanks to swarm - seeding .
harmonise to the Los Angeles Times , LA ’s Department of Public Works and North American Weather Consultants crank up up to 10 swarm - seed machine into action Sunday Nox as the tempest hustle through , which ended up plunge plenty of rain and snow in the region .
Seeding cloud is a relatively bare cognitive operation : Devices either mounted on the ground or installed on planes spray silver iodide into the moist atmosphere , which allows the air to make ice-skating rink particles at warmer temperature . This accelerates a process call cloud condensation , where water evaporation globs onto those subatomic particle , making clouds more likely to produce droplets of hurry .
It ’s a practice thatdates back to the 1950sand isstill relatively commonin place like China , which famously used it to produce sunny skies for the Beijing Olympics . ( It can also be used tosuppress inclement conditions . ) But I had n’t heard of it being used in California for so long that I assumed it was a engineering that was on the outs . It ’s expensive , for one , and even when performed precisely right , it ’s still not a certain matter .
twist out the last metre cloud - seeding was used in Southern California was back in 2002 — but not inevitably due to cost . Conditions have n’t been ideal in recent years . The drought that ’s paralyzed the West over the preceding five years has n’t deliver much bright moisture to ferment with , since cloud - seeding requires an exist storm to make more pelting . But even in the yr before 2009 , Southern California had ache some disabling wildfire wrong due to especially nasty fire season . Making an already powerful rainstorm too potent would have triggered mudslides and flooding .
Apparently , everything Sunday was just right : a big violent storm was come that already promised plenty of wet with no likely risk of infection due to recent wildfire . Let ’s just say the gamble paid off .
[ Los Angeles Times ]
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