The Kings River Weather Resources Management Program

In 1954 a cloud seeding program designed to increase rainfall and snowpack was initiated over the watershed of the Kings River in the Sierra Range of California. The project has been funded by the Kings River Conservation District, Fresno, California. With the exception of a few suspension periods due to high runoff and the construction of a hydroelectric facility, the program has been operated for 6-7 months each year since its inception. At the end of the first three-year period, a multiple regression analysis was developed utilizing the unregulated historic flow of the Kings River and the flow of adjacent rivers presumed to be unaltered by the cloud seeding activities. When applied to the subsequent operational periods, his analysis indicated an apparent increase in streamflow amounting to 6% of the total predicted by the regression analysis. The apparent increase was significant at the 0.005 level. During the years following this first analysis, a number of studies have been conducted including a continuation of the statistics work plus an analysis of data from 3cm and 5cm project radar data.