Rain-making unit shifts to Tak from Phitsanuloke to add more water into Bhumibol dam

[webfact]

Rain-making unit shifts to Tak from Phitsanuloke to add more water into Bhumibol dam



BANGKOK: -- The Ministry of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives has decided to move the rain-making unit from the base in Phitsanuloke province to Tak province after it was discovered that the water level in the Bhumibol dam is very low despite the onset of the rainy season.

The amount of water stored in the Bhumibol dam was estimated at only 214 million cubic metres constituting just two percent of the dam’s capacity and water inflow from rains remains scarce.

All the 11 rain-making planes of the Department of Rain-making and Agricultural Aviation have been moved from Phitsanuloke to their new base in Tak province where rain-making operation was launched on Wednesday.

The department chief Mr Lersak Riewtrakulpaibul said he expected more rains at the end of this month as a result of low pressure and the water in the Bhumibol dam will slowly and steadily replenished.

Also, the department plans to move its two more rain-making operation units from Udon Thani and Chanthaburi to Ubon Ratchathani and Sa Kaew provinces respectively to help farmers in the two provinces.

Water in the four main dams, namely Bhumibol, Sirikit, Kwae Noi Bamrungdan and Pasak Cholasit presently amounts to 8,080 million cubic metres constituting 32 percent of the combined water holding capacity of 1,384 million cubic metres. Water discharge from the four dams for consumption and ecological preservation amounts to 18 million cubic metres per day.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/content/165765


-- Thai PBS 2016-06-02

[Reigntax]

I wonder what its like to contantly live in a fantasy world of make believe, superstition and belief in the power of amulets, black magic and karma. I know my bullsh@t detector is going haywire.

[Winniedapu]

I wonder what its like to contantly live in a fantasy world of make believe, superstition and belief in the power of amulets, black magic and karma. I know my bullsh@t detector is going haywire.

Yup, and mine.

Incantations... *duh*. When is this nonsense all going to stop, I don't think I can stand it... every day there's at least one more insanity from these fracking people...

<facepalm>

WInnie

[chainarong]

Since Saturday I can attest that it bucketed down in Phit province on quite a few occasions, I can also add that lots of thunder and lightning was around , so mother nature can relax , the rain making unit is doing a good job and good old Tak will be under water in no time. ............................

[In the jungle]

Judging by this article logic and basic arithmetic are not strengths of the Ministry of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives.

[Scouse Twoccer]

I wonder what its like to contantly live in a fantasy world of make believe, superstition and belief in the power of amulets, black magic and karma. I know my bullsh@t detector is going haywire.

You're suggesting that cloud seeding relies on fantasy, make believe, superstition, and belief in the power of amulets, black magic and karma? Well you know why your detector is going haywire? It's because you're too close to it.

[Winniedapu]

I wonder what its like to contantly live in a fantasy world of make believe, superstition and belief in the power of amulets, black magic and karma. I know my bullsh@t detector is going haywire.

You're suggesting that cloud seeding relies on fantasy, make believe, superstition, and belief in the power of amulets, black magic and karma? Well you know why your detector is going haywire? It's because you're too close to it.

I think you're swimming against the tide of reason on this one, friend.

W

[johng]

Cloud seeding does work,the Russians reportedly used it to ensure that no rain fell on Red Square on parade days.

It only works if there are clouds to seed. They occur naturally you cant just wake up one morning and say I'll make it rain in such or such a place if there aren't any clouds !

[Winniedapu]

Cloud seeding does work,the Russians reportedly used it to ensure that no rain fell on Red Square on parade days.

It only works if there are clouds to seed. They occur naturally you cant just wake up one morning and say I'll make it rain in such or such a place if there aren't any clouds !

Well, it works sometimes - allegedly. Sometimes you seed here and rain falls there, that is not evidence unless it is stated beforehand where you intend it to rain. There is no reliable evidence that the (cheaper) salts used by Thais can consistently produce rain in the required areas - so far as I am aware.

W

[jamesbrock]

As I posted a few weeks ago, this by the Committee on the Status and Future Directions in U.S Weather Modification Research and Operations, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences (http://www.eenews.net/assets/2014/12/17/document_gw_01.pdf) concludes:

The Committee concurs with the conclusion from Silverman (2001) that: “Based upon a rigorous examination of the accumulated results of the numerous experimental tests of the static-mode and dynamic- mode seeding concepts conducted over the past four decades, it has been found that they have not yet provided either the statistical or physical evidence required to establish their scientific validity.” This statement was made specifically in reference to glaciogenic seeding of convective clouds. With the possible exception of winter orographic clouds, it applies to virtually all efforts aimed at precipitation enhancement or hail suppression. This does not challenge the scientific basis of cloud-seeding concepts; rather, it is recognition of the lack of credible evidence that applying these concepts will lead to predictable, detectable, and verifiable results.

As Winniedapu pointed out, people on the ground do occasionally see the effects of cloud seeding in some—not all—instances, but as found by various independent first world scientific studies, the effects often appear later in time, and outside the seeded area:

For example, in recent large particle hygroscopic seeding trials involving warm-base convective clouds in Thailand and Texas, increases in rain were reported 3 to 12 hours after seeding was conducted, well beyond the time at which direct effects of seeding were expected and possibly outside the target area.

Some argue that increasing precipitation in one region could reduce precipitation downwind (by “stealing” the atmospheric water vapor), or conversely, could enhance precipitation downwind (by increasing evaporation and transpiration and thus providing more moisture for clouds). Such claims, however, currently belong to the realm of speculation, as no quantitative studies of this issue have been conducted. This is a challenging issue to address, due to the current limitations of quantitative precipitation forecasting.

Again, the reason why Thailand has been wracked by drought for the past 18 months, while releasing mounds of table salt from trap doors in the bellies of its planes, is because seeding only occasionally works if the conditions for rain are there in the first place.

Since 1980 operational and research glaciogenic seeding experiments for rainfall enhancement based on the dynamic seeding concept have been conducted in Thailand. Exploratory analyses of these experiments have indicated precipitation increases on the scale of individual clouds or cells with varying levels of statistical support. The evidence for area-wide effects, although suggestive of precipitation increases, is weak and lacking in statistical support.

More recently, according to a report presented at the 7th WMO Scientific Conference on Weather Modification in Chiang Mai in 1999, a randomised convective cloud-seeding experiment was conducted on mixed-phase clouds in Thailand, based on the dynamic seeding concept. The sample consisted of 62 units, and while the statistical results indicated increases in rainfall, the results were not statistically significant.

In recent hygroscopic seeding experiments conducted in Thailand and reported on in 2003, statistical analyses indicated increases in rainfall, but they appeared later in time than anticipated and did not conform to the original hypothesis. Dynamical effects, which were not included in the original hypotheses, were invoked to explain the results.

Dan Breed, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who in 2014 completed a nine-year, $14 million government-funded study, states “There’s little dispute that if you can actually get the seeding material inside the clouds, it will enhance precipitation, the question is, by how much?” And compared to what?

As the National research Council states in its report:

The need to predict what would have happened had there been no weather modification (which is especially important in the context of attempts to modify hazardous weather) places an enormous burden on prediction. Predictive numerical models are required to accurately assess what would have occurred in the absence of any intervention, in order to assess both the magnitude and the potential consequences of the change. However, model development and physical understanding are interdependent, thus advances in both are slow and iterative.

Edited June 2, 2016 by jamesbrock

[taony]

Whatever it is or does, its not going to increase the amount of rain that falls. The best you can do is to coax some of it to fall before the cloud floats over someone else's land.

[pieeyed]

Now because of their efforts and nothing to do with nature we will get flooded?

[billd766]

2 weather reports for Thailand up to 07.00 this morning.

The first one is the daily update of the weather stations in Thailand. The second is the amount of water remaining in the major dams.

http://www.tmd.go.th/programs/uploads/ReportsGenMetnet/Daily/DailyObserved7AM-en.pdf

http://www.thaiwater.net/web/index.php/en.html

[ujayujay]

I wonder what its like to contantly live in a fantasy world of make believe, superstition and belief in the power of amulets, black magic and karma. I know my bullsh@t detector is going haywire.

OK.....you comment something you have no Idea. This Rainmaking thing has nothing to do with Superstitious. I'ts a Fact and scientifically proven: Cloud-seeding involves firing particles, usually silver iodide, into clouds to encourage water vapour to gather round them and eventually fall as rain.