MPR: North Dakota Rainmakers

North Dakota Rainmakers
By Dan Gunderson
July 22, 1998

Despite scientific skepticism, cloud seeding is becoming more common. The largest cloud seeding company in the world is based in Fargo.

THE MAYANS THREW WOMEN INTO WELLS to appease the rain god. In 18th century England, bells were rung to shock moisture from the clouds. In the mid-1800s in Texas, dynamite was attached to kites and exploded in flight in hopes of producing rain.

In 1946 a General Electric scientist found silver iodide caused ice to form. Ice in clouds can cause rain, and the discovery prompted an explosion of cloud seeding in the '50s and '60s. More often than not, the efforts failed, and cloud seeders were looked upon as charlatans.

Weather Modification chief meteorologist Fred Reemer says enthusiasm was ahead of science.

Reemer: During the 1950s and '60s, you had salesmen overselling weather modification, saying it could do great things, but they weren't necessarily doing the right things.

Weather Modification, Inc., has its world headquarters in a spacious office complex and hangar at the Fargo airport. On a catwalk at one end of the hangar, Fred Reemer shows off the latest in weather radar - a key weapon in the high-tech game of cloud seeding.

Reemer: I think it was about five we saw some storms ... here we go.

He pulls the radar image of a recent thunderstorm from the computer's memory.

Reemer: Ah, here's the storm. This is a massive storm. Gets me excited just looking at it. Typically this time of year storms go up to 45,000 feet. When this one went to 65 - we knew it was hellacious.

Weather modification sets up radar like this wherever it has an operation. Radar operators then pinpoint where new thunderstorms are growing and, using global positioning satellites, direct aircraft to spew silver iodide crystals into the thunderstorm.

Pilots typically give thunderstorms a wide berth, but cloud seeders like Hans Ulness get as close to the turbulence as possible. It sounds dangerous, but Ulness says in 30 years the company hasn't lost a plane or pilot.

Ulness: The idea isn't to go out and kill yourself. It's not a heroic struggle against the cloud. It's a business.

Hans Ulness has logged about 2,000 hours cloud seeding in 17 years. He says flying into the heart of thunderstorms is never routine.

Ulness: The updrafts and downdrafts are enough to shake your teeth loose. I long ago quit wearing baseball caps with the little knob on top 'cause you nail the roof and end up with a little dent in your head.

Cloud seeding pioneers in North Dakota started work in the 1950s as a way first to reduce hail, then to enhance rainfall.

In theory, seeding a cloud with silver iodide will create raindrops, increasing precipitation and reducing the moisture available to form hail.

Today, Fargo-based Weather Modification operates across the U.S. and in Canada, Mexico, Greece, and Thailand.

Vice president Jim Sweeney sees a bright future.

Sweeney: We've seen significant growth in the industry, both domestically and internationally. Cloud seeding is becoming more of a water management tool. We're not there to solve a drought problem, but over a number of years we can certainly improve water conditions.

Traditionally, governments fund cloud seeding, but Jim Sweeney says a project aimed at reducing hail in Alberta is breaking new ground: it's being paid for by insurance companies hoping to cut their losses.

Sweeney: They're paying approximately $1.4 million per year. That's a drop in the bucket for them - paying out even 15 or 150 million per storm. If we can reduce that even by a little bit, it's well worth their while.

Interest in cloud seeding may be growing, but scientific skepticism continues unabated. Bill Cotton is one of a legion of scientists who doubt cloud seeding is a good investment. Cotton, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, says the success of cloud seeding is based more on a convincing sales pitch than scientific proof.

Cotton: I think a lot of it is what I call a "political placebo." That is, it's better to do something than to do nothing.

Cotton studied weather modification as a graduate student 30 years ago and has maintained an interest in the practice. He says repeated studies have failed to prove cloud seeding has any effect on what a thunderstorm does, and he says a majority of scientists put cloud seeding in the same category as sorcery.

Cotton: It's a little hard for some scientists to imagine that - trying to suppress hail in one of these supercell thunderstorms you have up in that country, trying to put enough material in to alter the hail cycle. It's hard to believe.

Cloud seeders like Hans Ulness admit there's no clear scientific proof, and he says cloud seeding doesn't always work. Ulness says not just scientists are skeptics - a lot of farmers who pay the bill are, too. But he firmly believes cloud seeding works, and he shrugs off the naysayers.

Ulness: You can't just give people a check at the end of the year, "Here's the hail you didn't get, and extra rain you got, and the extra wheat yield you got because of it, courtesy of Weather Mod. Here you go." It's more of an intangible thing. We can't color the rain purple we cause.

Fargo-based Weather Modification, Inc. plans to expand its operations in the U.S. and worldwide next year in response to a seemingly insatiable desire to control Mother Nature.

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