The end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 have been extremly dry in Beijing - not a single raindrop since October 24th. The rain that finally broke Beijing's 110-day dry spell on February 15 fell harder and longer than it would have, thanks to the local government adopting cloud-seeding and other artificial precipitation measures. Given the favorable conditions (the meterological bureau was predicting light rain) the local government decided to launch a land and air offensive on Feb 12 to try increase the amount of rain that would fall over Beijing.
One plane from the Chinese air force was called into offer air support to 7 ground teams who blasted 49 rockets into the low lying clouds and another 31 teams who were busy burning 875 sticks of Silver iodide atop various mountains around suburban and rural Beijing.
The rain-making was supervised by the Beijing Weather Modification Office and was part of a broader operation to provide much needed rain to large parts of northern China. The rain-making exercise appeared to be a success, with the Beijing News reporting that an average of 9mm of rain fell in the urban districts of Beijing and an average of 7mm across the whole metropolitan area. Originally the forecast was for a fall of about 3mm across the city.
Snow cover Beijing
On the heels of its successful rainmaking venture last week, the Beijing Weather Modification Command Center has shot an additional “500 cigarette-size sticks of silver iodide" from “28 weather rocket-launch bases” into the clouds over the past few days to help create this week’s snowfall, the most the city has seen in a number of years. The artificially induced precipitation is intended to quell the region’s ongoing drought, but also led to the closure of 12 highways around the capital. You can not get all......
