Description

In 1996, concern by representatives of the Mexican State of Coahuila and Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA) regarding regional pressures on water resources, particularly during drought conditions in northern México, led to the development of a scientific program to evaluate the viability of increasing rainfall through cloud seeding techniques. Consequently, the Program for the Augmentation of Rainfall in Coahuila (PARC) was proposed as a four–year program consisting of a randomized seeding experiment, physical studies, and collaboration with and training of Mexican scientists and students. During the summers of 1997 and 1998, the field project focused on a randomized seeding experiment as well as continuing to collect meteorological data for further evaluation of the randomized experiment and other physical studies. Over the course of two years, a total of 94 valid cases were collected: 43 seeded cases and 51 non–seeded cases. It is important to note that the number of cases (94 cases) is still marginal for any statistical analysis. The PARC program was planned for four years and the fourth year would probably have provided a sufficient number of cases. However, due to funding problems the fourth year of the experiment could not be completed. Therefore, caution should be exercised in interpreting the results as unambiguous proof of success. This is a clip of a video taken during the experiment in 1997.