What is the actual benefit from cloud seeding?
David L. Newsom Atmospherics Incorporated, Fresno, California ABSTRACT: Since Vincent Schaefer s Cold Box experiment in the late 1940 s, cloud seeding hasbeen used to increase rainfall, enhance snowfall, and decrease damaging hail throughout the world. One of the most frequent uses of cloud seeding has been as an aid to dry land agriculture. There have been numerous programs conducted with claims of precipitation being increased by X%, it is often unclear whether this claimed increase applies to theentire Target Area or whether it occurs on a more localized area. While some portions of the Target Area will benefit greatly from seeding, an X% increase can sometimes be aninsignificant amount of water in relation to the entire Target Area. Even over a relatively small area like a single county, there will be natural variations inannual precipitation. These can be the result of topography as well as climatological in-fluences and these variations in precipitation can have a major impact on
