{"id":23123,"date":"2015-03-05T06:30:49","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T12:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=23123"},"modified":"2015-03-05T06:51:57","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T12:51:57","slug":"weather-mod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2015\/03\/05\/weather-mod\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawton Turns to Weather Manipulation to Aid Drought-Stricken City Water Supplies"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_23146\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23146\" alt=\"A Lockheed WC-130B used by U.S. government researchers Stormfury, a cloud seeding research project focused on reducing the strength of hurricanes.\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/03\/Lockheed-WC-130B.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"401\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/03\/Lockheed-WC-130B.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/03\/Lockheed-WC-130B-500x323.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/03\/Lockheed-WC-130B-150x97.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/03\/Lockheed-WC-130B-300x194.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">NOAA<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Lockheed WC-130B used by U.S. government researchers Stormfury, a cloud seeding research project focused on reducing the strength of hurricanes.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>Five years of drought has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fstateimpact.npr.org%2Foklahoma%2F2015%2F01%2F15%2Fdrought-stricken-oklahoma-communities-dealing-with-prospect-of-dead-lakes%2F&ei=efT3VM-XOZL-gwSMmIG4Bg&usg=AFQjCNGRySSuDQ-mEY2VlorsoFtmb5R5rQ&sig2=5Q7jR2BKk0TndNeLTOGY3A\">strangled lakes and reservoirs<\/a> in southwestern Oklahoma.<\/p><p>The city of Lawton is considering extraordinary means to help fill water supplies. City leaders hope a man with an airplane can manipulate the weather and bring more rain.<\/p><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/194312932%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-VxpzN&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=false\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p><p><!--more-->Gary Walker has a lot of titles under his belt: Navy pilot, cowboy, water conservation district manager and four-term Texas lawmaker. But he\u2019s not a rainmaker.<\/p><p>\u201cI can\u2019t put two inches of water on farmer Jones\u2019 field; I have to just work with the clouds,\u201d he says.<\/p><p>If he has the right clouds to work with, Walker says he can make them bigger, more voluminous and more likely to produce rain. The weather-modification process is known as \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aoml.noaa.gov\/hrd\/nhurr97\/CSEED.HTM\">cloud-seeding<\/a>.\u201d<\/p><p>To do this, Walker and his team go airborne. A meteorologist on the ground guides pilots into cloud formations, where they activate special chemical flares on the airplane\u2019s wings. The chemicals \u2014 Walker uses calcium chloride and sodium iodide \u2014 promote cloud condensation and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wisegeek.org\/what-is-nucleation.htm\">provide small particles<\/a> on which ice and water can form.<\/p><p>Walker\u2019s company, Seeding Operations and Atmospheric Research \u2014 or SOAR, has flown weather-modification missions over states like California and Texas, and internationally in places like Istanbul, Turkey. Given two similar clouds, Walker says he can get 10 or 15 percent more water through cloud-seeding.<\/p>\n<h3>Cloud contract<\/h3><p>In February, Lawton <a href=\"http:\/\/www.swoknews.com\/local\/council-oks-water-surcharge\">approved a $1 water bill surcharge<\/a> to pay Walker\u2019s company for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/1681693-application-wm-2015-1-soar-lawton-updated.html\">a five-month, $250,000 cloud-seeding contract<\/a>. Work could start as early as April.<\/p><p>Officials with the Oklahoma Water Resources Board say the Lawton project is likely the state\u2019s first cloud-seeding operation in at least a decade and the first weather-modification permit application filed with the state in the last 25 years.<\/p><p>In the early 1970s, the OWRB assumed permitting responsibility for most weather-modification activities around the state, with two exceptions: A state Legislature-funded program that ran from 1996-2001 and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.owrb.ok.gov\/hazard\/weather\/wx_mod.php\">federally funded Weather Damage Modification Program<\/a>, which ran from 2002-2003 and was administered by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, says OWRB spokesman Cole Perryman.<\/p><p>\u201cWe were pretty surprised when we saw the permit,\u201d says Water Resources Board Executive Director J.D. Strong.<\/p><p>The most recent weather-modification permit the OWRB has record of approving <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/1681692-1987-wm-permit.html\">was issued in 1986<\/a> for \u201crainfall-enhancement operations\u201d the following year at Hitch Ranch Agri-Business.<\/p>\n<h3>Historical Success?<\/h3><p>Keith Jackson has been a Lawton city councilor for 16 years and is one of the project\u2019s biggest supporters.<\/p><p>\u201cI\u2019m excited about it,\u201d he says in an interview at Lawton City Hall.<\/p><p>Lawton\u2019s water situation is dire. Combined, the three reservoirs that supply water to the city\u2019s roughly 97,000 residents are hovering around 40 percent full. The city has already enacted mandatory restrictions on outdoor watering, and Jackson expects the city will forced into stricter rationing within weeks.<\/p><p>\u201cI want to emphasize that this is not going to make it rain. This is not going to create rain,\u201d says Jackson, who tells people the idea is to coax additional precipitation from rain-ready weather.<\/p><p>In the long term, the city is considering digging more wells or building a new pipeline, but those projects are years away. Jackson hopes cloud-seeding will help fill the reservoirs.<\/p><p>And, he says, weather modification worked for Lawton in the past. In the late \u201960s or early \u201970s, the city faced similar drought-fueled water supply problems and turned to Irving P. Krick for cloud-seeding assistance.<\/p><p>Krick was one of the country\u2019s first commercial meteorologists and a member of the team that forecasted the weather for the D-Day invasion. He was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1996\/06\/30\/us\/irving-p-krick-89-who-made-a-business-out-of-forecasting-theweather.html\">a controversial character<\/a> who was often at odds with an academic establishment that doubted his rainmaking methods. In 1953, M.B. Cunningham, Oklahoma City\u2019s water superintendent at the time, praised Krick\u2019s work to reporters at WKY-TV.<\/p><p>\u201cWe have received some benefits,\u201d Cunningham told WKY-TV. \u201cAnd, of course, we don\u2019t know whether the benefits all came as a result of his work, but at least a review of the projects where he has worked offers very convincing evidence.\u201d<\/p><p>\u201cWhatever he did worked,\u201d Jackson says about Krick\u2019s efforts above Lawton more than 40 years ago. People were convinced. \u201cEven a lot of the old skeptics \u2014 you know, the farmers, the people who are normally skeptics of rainmaking.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Dust Bowl desperation<\/h3><p>Kevin Kloesel, a meteorologist and director of the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, says rainmaking techniques have been sold in Oklahoma \u201cever since the Dust Bowl.\u201d<\/p><p>\u201cEvery time there is a deep drought, any possible way of augmenting precipitation becomes something that, almost in desperation, people begin to try,\u201d Kloesel says.<\/p><p>While Kloesel says many rainmakers of the past proved to be charlatans, he doesn\u2019t doubt the sincerity of modern weather modifiers \u2014 or some of the methods they use to promote rain-generating clouds.<\/p><p>But he says there\u2019s one glaring flaw with cloud-seeding science: Mother Nature makes a complicated laboratory \u2014 there\u2019s no way to make a cloud control group.<\/p><p>\u201cI\u2019m not saying it doesn\u2019t work; I\u2019m saying there\u2019s no scientifically valid way to test its effectiveness,\u201d Kloesel says.<\/p><p>Researchers have studied weather modification for decades. To produce rainclouds, reduce hail or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aoml.noaa.gov\/hrd\/hrd_sub\/sfury.html\">diminish the power of hurricanes<\/a>. The problems with testing cloud seeding, Kloesel says, are the same ones that vex meteorologists and weather scientists who work around the clock trying to predict naturally occurring weather patterns.<\/p><p>\u201cThere are so many unanswered questions and things we don\u2019t understand about rainfall to begin with, that even trying to seed clouds, we\u2019re in a position of not being able to make any meaningful determination of whether it actually worked or not,\u201d he says.<\/p><p>In Lawton, city councilman Jackson makes no rainfall promises, but he says cloud-seeding is worth a shot and that most residents seem to be on board.<\/p><p>There have been many complaints about the $1 fee to pay for the cloud-seeding contract. But as for the issue of chemical-spraying, cloud-making airplanes flying overhead?<\/p><p>\u201cI haven\u2019t had any calls,\u201d Jackson says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Five years of drought has strangled lakes and reservoirs in southwestern Oklahoma.The city of Lawton is considering extraordinary means to help fill water supplies. City leaders hope a man with an airplane can manipulate the weather and bring more rain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":23146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[491],"tags":[635,423,427,634],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23123"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23160,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23123\/revisions\/23160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}