Cloud Seeding - The Utah Experience

Authors

  • Norman E Stauffer, Jr. Utah Division of Water Resources Salt Lake City, Utah

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54782/jwm.v33i1.462

Abstract

The first cloud seeding project in Utah began in the early 1950s in the central and southern portion of the state and lasted four years. The project was reactivated in 1973 by the original organizers and has continued to the present. The Utah Cloud Seeding Act was passed in 1973 by the Utah Legislature. This law provides for licensing cloud seeding operators and permitting cloud seeding projects by the Utah Division of Water Resources. The act states that for water right purposes all water derived from cloud seeding will be treated as though it fell naturally. The act also allows for the division to sponsor and/or cost-share in cloud seeding projects. Since 1976, the state through the division and Board of Water Resources has cost-shared with local entities for cloud seeding projects. In the 1970s, cloud seeding projects expanded to cover most of the state. The majority of projects were for winter time snowpack augmentation, but a summertime hail suppression/rainfall augmentation project operated for six years in Northern Utah. The state participated in the NOAA Cooperative Weather Modification Research Project fi’om 1981 to 1996. Wintertime snowpack augmentation projects continue to operate in Utah.

Downloads

Issue

Vol. 33 No. 1 (2001)

Section

Technical Notes and Correspondence

License

Authors that submit papers for publication agree to the Journal’s copyright and publication terms. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the manuscript’s authorship and initial publication in Journal of Weather Modification. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal’s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in the Journal of Weather Modification. Authors are permitted to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process to encourage productive exchanges and greater citation of the published article.
 
Articles are published online using restricted access for the first year. After the first year, articles are made freely available online. Immediate open access for an article may be obtained by the author paying an open access fee which is in addition to the normal page changes. Authors are expected to honor a page charge in order to support publication and distribution of the journal. After the author approves the gallery formatted version for publication, the Weather Modification Association’s Secretary will invoice the corresponding author for the page charges and payment is due within 30 days.

How to Cite

Cloud Seeding - The Utah Experience. (2001). The Journal of Weather Modification, 33(1), 63-69. https://doi.org/10.54782/jwm.v33i1.462