Weather Modification

Water is prized in western Kansas, where aquifers are suffering and farms are miles wide and generations deep; a scant half inch of rain can mean the difference between a successful season and a failed one. But when it comes in the form of fist-sized balls of ice known as hail, water's more than a menace. It can damage and even destroy crops. That's where the Western Kansas Weather Modification Program and other cloud-seeding operations across the western U.S. come in. The WKWMP is among about 10 programs that tinker with the weather — either by trying to cut the size of hail or boost rainfall and snowpack. They do it largely by shooting up storm clouds with silver iodide or dry ice mixtures.