The Seeded and Natural Orographic Wintertime Clouds: The Idaho Experiment (SNOWIE) project aims to study the impacts of cloud seeding on winter orographic clouds. The field campaign took place in Idaho between 7 January and 17 March 2017 and employed a comprehensive suite of instrumentation, including ground-based radars and airborne sensors, to collect in situ and remotely sensed data in and around clouds containing supercooled liquid water before and after seeding with silver iodide aerosol particles. The seeding material was released primarily by an aircraft. It was hypothesized that the dispersal of the seeding material from aircraft would produce zigzag lines of silver iodide as it dispersed downwind. In several cases, unambiguous zigzag lines of reflectivity were detected by radar, and in situ measurements within these lines have been examined to determine the microphysical response of the cloud to seeding. The measurements from SNOWIE aim to address long-standing questions about the efficacy of cloud seeding, starting with documenting the physical chain of events following seeding. The data will also be used to evaluate and improve computer modeling parameterizations, including a new cloud-seeding parameterization designed to further evaluate and quantify the impacts of cloud seeding.
Publications:
- French, J.R., K. Friedrich, S. Tessendorf, R. Rauber, B. Geerts, R. Rasmussen, L. Xue, M. Kunkel, D. Blestrud, 2018: Precipitation formation from orographic cloud seeding. Nat. Acad. Sci., January 22, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1716995115.
- , 2019: A Transformational Approach to Winter Orographic Weather Modification Research: The SNOWIE Project. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 100, 71–92, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-17-0152.1
- Haupt, S.E., R.M. Rauber, B. Carmichael, J.C. Knievel, and J.L. Cogan, 2018: 100 Years of Progress in Applied Meteorology. Part I: Basic Applications. Meteorological Monographs, 59, 22.1–22.33, https://doi.org/10.1175/AMSMONOGRAPHS-D-18-0004.1.
- Rauber, R.M., B. Geerts, L. Xue, J. French, K. Friedrich, R. M. Rasmussen, S. A. Tessendorf, D. R. Blestrud, M. L. Kunkel, and S. Parkinson, 2019: Wintertime Orographic Cloud Seeding-A Review. J. Appl. Meteor. Climatology, 58, 2117-2140.
- Friedrich, K K. Ikeda, S. A. Tessendorf, J. French, Rauber, R.M., B. Geerts, L. Xue, R. M. Rasmussen, D. R. Blestrud, M. L. Kunkel, N. Dawson, and S. Parkinson, 2020: Quantifying snowfall from orographic cloud seeding. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 117 (10) 5190-5195 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1917204117
- Friedrich, K, J. French, S. A. Tessendorf, M. Hatt, C. Weeks, Rauber, R.M., B. Geerts, L. Xue, R. M. Rasmussen, D. R. Blestrud, M. L. Kunkel, N. Dawson, and S. Parkinson, 2021: Microphysical characteristics and evolution of seeded orographic clouds. Appl. Meteor., in press.
- Grasmick, C., B. Geerts, X. Chu, J. R. French, and R. M. Rauber, 2021, Detailed dual-Doppler structure of Kelvin-Helmholtz waves from an airborne profiling radar over complex terrain. Part II: Evidence for precipitation enhancement. J. Atmos. Sci., in review.
- Xue, L., C. Weeks, S. Chen, S. A. Tessendorf, R. M. Rasmussen, K. Ikeda, B. Kosovic, D. Behringer, J. R. French, K. Friedrich, T. J. Zaremba, R. M. Rauber, B. Geerts, D. Blestrud, M. Kunkel, N. Dawson, and S. Parkinson, 2021: Comparison between observed and simulated AgI seeding impacts in a well-observed case from the SNOWIE field program., J. Appl. Meteor. Climatology, In Review.