Anti-hail ground generators
Anti-hail ground generators
- Method: Ground-based generator towers are mainly positioned along the foothills of mountain ranges where orographic and low-hanging cumulus clouds form. The generators are static and on them are mounted burning flares containing the seeding agent. The seeding material is dispersed into the targeted clouds by taking advantage of updraft valley winds and local slopes topography.
- Results: Seeding of hail bearing clouds with ground generators can reduce the size of hailstones and prevent agricultural damage and economic losses. Similar to aerial seeding, ground-based seeding leads to early rainout of the targeted clouds and achieves beneficial competition, downwind of the generators’ site.
- Characteristics: Ground-based generators are particularly suitable for seeding in mountainous areas where the terrain does not allow for other types of seeding, like aerial, due to safety reasons. Other advantages of ground generators are their inexpensive and simple maintenance and negligible carbon footprint.
- A drawback of this method is the unpredictable nature of the process of agent dispersion in the atmosphere until it reaches the targeted cloud area, thus extensive quantity of agent needs to be used.
