Don’t blame Dubai’s freak rain on cloud seeding – the storm was far too big to be human-made
Retrieved on:
Friday, April 19, 2024
Thousands of meters below, a smaller plane would be threading through the storm downdrafts measuring the rain.
Key Points:
- Thousands of meters below, a smaller plane would be threading through the storm downdrafts measuring the rain.
- The project I was part of, neatly named Rain (Rain Augmentation in Nelspruit), was a cloud seeding experiment several years in the making.
- Cloud seeding involves adding tiny particles into a cloud in order to give moisture something to attach to and form droplets.
- There is no identical cloud with which to compare the outcome of having seeded a particular cloud.
A perfect storm
- Parts of the Arabian Peninsula received 18 months of rainfall in 24 hours that Tuesday.
- Being the weather-man in the chat group, I looked at the satellite and the forecast model data.
- What I saw were the ingredients of a perfect storm.
- Under these conditions, thunderstorms develop very readily and in this case a special kind of storm, a mesoscale convective system, built and sustained itself for many hours.
Cloud seeding not to blame
- What surprised me, though, was not the majesty of nature, but an emerging set of reports blaming the ensuing rains on cloud seeding.
- It turns out the UAE has been running a cloud seeding project, UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science, for several years.
- The idea, similar to the Rain project I once worked on, is to promote the growth of cloud droplets and thereby rainfall.
Richard Washington receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council to study climate processes.