Wallace E. Howell cloud seeding W. E. Howell Associates, Inc. and the law Lexington, Mass. in the Blue Ridge area 1. Cloud seeding and the citizen that the cloud seeding is either increasing the intensity It has been a truism of weather modification that it con- of hailstorms or in other instances suppressing the forma- cerns every citizen whose life is affected by the weather, tion of clouds and contributing to decrease of rainfall in and that means all of us. It has also been a truism that the seeded areas. Similar obstacles have been encountered some like it hot and some like it cold, some like it wet by cloud seeding programs in Texas and in Oregon. In and some like it dry. There have been a number of specu- the following paragraphs I shall follow the development lations as to how these conflicts of interest might work of opposition and the meteorological notions on which out in the future of weather modification legislation and it is based in a particular instance and suggest measures programs, but on the whole they have taken for granted that may be taken in the future. that developments would be based on adequate public education and guided by an enlightened attitude on the 2. Opposition develops in the Blue Ridge area part of lawmakers toward the scientific possibilities and In the summer of 1956 the fruit producing area in and the social and economic potentialities of weather modi- near the Great Appalachian Valley, where the Potomac fication. They have not on the whole contemplated River crosses it, suffered severely from hail damage. In obstruction of such developments based on mistaken some areas, not only was fruit completely destroyed but notions of the purpose and capabilities of weather modi- trees were defoliated and stripped of their bark on the fication programs firmly held and warmly championed windward side, so that whole orchards had to be cut by one segment or another of the population. The down and replaced. Under the stimulus of this catas- emergence of such opposition in several instances is, on trophe, and the suggestion that cloud seeding might the one hand, a problem for the individual cloud seeders somewhat mitigate the intensity of hail, a group of or- and their clients, and on the other hand a challenge to chardists incorporated the Blue Ridge Weather Modi- the profession in the guidance of over-all policy of fication Association as a non-profit corporation in West weather modification toward longer-range goals of its Virginia, and sought professional advice concerning their ultimate application for social and economic purposes. problem. They were advised that the effectiveness of In relatively rare instances, the opposition to weather cloud seeding for hail suppression was a highly uncertain modification has arisen from a conflict of interest in the and controversial matter, but that there was reason to intended goal of the cloud seeding program. For exam- hope that it might bring about an economically impor- ple, a cloud seeding program carried out in the State tant reduction in hail damage; furthermore, that the of Washington during the 1950's for stimulation of rain cloud seeding would not have undesirable side effects in over wheat growing areas aroused such opposition from the reduction of average precipitation in the area. On cherry growers who feared rain damage to the fruit at a this basis, the Association contracted with the Weather critical phase of its ripening that they employed for sev- Modification Company of San Jose, California, to carry eral seasons an anti-rain-stimulator who seeded the clouds out cloud seeding during a season from approximately in an effort to counteract the stimulation. More com- mid-May to the end of August for the purpose of hail monly, however, opposition has stemmed from a belief suppression. The seeding was done from a network of that the cloud seeding either accomplished the opposite about 100 silver iodide smoke generators situated in and of its intended purpose or was accompanied by side ef- to windward of the target area, supplemented by two fects of a dangerous or undesirable nature. In Colorado airplanes carrying silver iodide smoke generators, the and southwestern Nebraska, a program of cloud seeding operations being guided by observations made with a that began as a commercial venture in hail suppression 3-cm radar set situated where it had a view of rain de- for the sugar beet producers and has been converted to velopments over and about 100 miles to windward of the a program of research in hail suppression under the di- area to be protected. The ground generators were op- rection of Colorado State University has aroused bitter erated in a relatively selective manner, designed to place opposition from certain farmers in the area who believe the silver iodide smoke in the path of precipitation cells 328 Vol. 46, No. 6, June 1965 Unauthenticated | Downloaded 10/06/21 08:22 PM UTC Bulletin American Meteorological Society observed on the radar to be exceptionally intense and when the farmers learned that the meeting had been considered to be threatening for hail. The aircraft were arranged for and the cloud physicist paid by the orchard- used to supplement the ground-based seeding for espe- ists' lawyer; they immediately assumed that the expert's cially intense precipitation centers or for precipitation testimony was bought and paid for in an effort to dupe centers approaching from directions not protected ade- the poor ignorant farmers. Violence directed against the quately by the ground-based network. The conceptual speaker was narrowly avoided, and far from achieving its model serving as a guide for the conduct of the seeding purpose, the meeting served as an occasion to focus op- operations was that which visualizes hail as the conse- position to the cloud seeding program. Opposition in- quence of snow pellets formed in the upper portion of creasingly crystallized around certain centers of action. large convective storms falling through a portion of the The Pennsylvania Senate in the spring of 1963 passed a rising chimney of relatively buoyant air containing large bill proposed by Senator Elmer Hawbaker of Mercers- quantities of supercooled liquid water. In accordance burg, Pennsylvania, that would have outlawed cloud with this model, the purpose of the seeding was to pro- seeding except when carried out by the Commissioner of vide, in the first place, a larger number of rudimentary Agriculture for experimental purposes, but this bill died hailstones at the top of the cloud by increasing the in the House Committee of Public Health and Welfare. number of frozen particles at that level, and in the A few months later, HR 8708 was introduced in the second place to diminish the concentration of super- U. S. Congress by Rep. Whalley of Pennsylvania, which cooled liquid water in the part of the updraft within would have outlawed cloud seeding from the air unless which the hailstones grew by converting it partly to snow. permission were received from all land owners in the The first season of operation of this program, the sum- area possibly affected, and Rep. Mathias of Maryland mer of 1957, proved to be a season of severe drought in introduced a bill directing the Weather Bureau to study and around the target area. Word of the program got the matter and report. Protest meetings were organized around among the farmers and gave rise to the notion, in several counties by a variety of individuals, one an easily understandable, that the cloud seeding was in- auctioneer-become-horse-trader, another a retired air tended to suppress the formation of clouds capable of line pilot, a third the publisher of a weekly newspaper. giving severe showers and thus eliminate the danger of The organizations thus formed carried on campaigns to hail. This notion was strongly reinforced by the anom- circulate petitions calling for an end to the interference alous behavior of clouds and thunderstorms during the with the natural course of the weather. drought period, when promising-looking clouds that de- In the spring of 1963, the operating contract was trans- veloped over the Appalachian ridges frequently suc- ferred to the W. E. Howell Associates, Inc. The season cumbed to the downdrafts of lee waves and disappointed began inauspiciously, with a period of almost complete the farmers' expectations of rain. Reports of airplanes drought from mid-April to mid-May before the cloud seen flying through rain clouds and breaking them up seeding began; and when I learned of the opposition were widely circulated to an audience already suffering by the local farmers, I arranged to meet a group of them from drought and very anxious over its future course. under the auspices of the Pennsylvania Farmers Asso- Many individual protests were made in the form of let- ciation. I found them firmly convinced of the effective- ters to the editors of the local newspapers, discussions in ness of cloud seeding for dissipating rain storms and local taverns and barber shops, and comment in farmer naturally inclined to be extremely distrustful of those organizations such as the Grange and the Farm Bureau. whom they blamed for the misfortune of drought and The majority of these discussions carried a firm convic- of all who agreed with the cloud seeders in any way or tion not only that the purpose of the program was to who disagreed with their own notions. suppress the development of intense storms but also that The heat of the discord fluctuated during the season the purpose was brilliantly achieved and actually inter- in inverse ratio to the rainfall, which was relatively ade- fered with the formation of rain showers of all sizes.