It seems cloud seeding is occuring right over our heads..literally. It is a very interesting stage for our project that has landed on our doorstep.

We were given some information from a friend of ours. Please see the following links.

Cloud Bursting Over Xiamen Artificial rainfall seeding to alleviate the drought conditions now prevailing in the Fujian Province  was carried out last night 9th Nov 2009, reported  the Xiamen Network http://www.xmnn.cn 2009-11-09 18:35 and Reuters

Artificial Rainfall Rockets costing around 2000rmb each were fired last night at the skies surrounding Xiamen in an attempt to encourage rain to fall following an extended period of drought. At around 12:00 midnight last night the first drops of rain could be felt, falling on parched earth all around the Haiwan Park area of the City and extending out across the island

Source: Xiamenwave


Reuters Xiamen (Xiamen Daily reported that China's Zhang Lu Yin Lei) reporter learned from the Xiamen Municipal Meteorological Bureau, the city will introduce artificial rainfall to alleviate drought lasted for many days. At present all the preparations for artificial rainfall has been doing a good job, shells are ready to put in place, as long as the conditions are right, ready to artificial rainfall. Artificial rainfall may be carried out at night. Haicang outside the island, with an, Xiang'an any fixed locations, ready, according to the changes in cloud cover at any time artificial rainfall.


Source:http://news.xmnn.cn/dysj/200911/t20091109_1228605.htm

The body of Wang Diange, from the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, was found in the wreckage of a house where he had been overseeing the wake of a previous family funeral, after mourners felt a loud explosion which took off half the roof.

As it was raining and thundery, they decided that the house, and Mr Wang in particular, had been struck by lightning. The police came to the same conclusion.


Further inquiries were made a few days later after Mr Wang's own funeral. As his body was being put into the cremation chamber, it blew up spectacularly, bursting the doors off the oven.

When the fire had been put out, the only clue as to what had happened was a small twisted piece of metal, which seemed to be the glowing remnants of a screw.

At first, local metallurgists were unable to determine what it was, though they noted it bore a military serial number. After a lengthy investigation, however, it was suggested it might be part of a shell casing.

Inquiries revealed that the rainfall on the day of the original disaster was triggered by the local weather bureau, which had been firing shells into the atmosphere to break up hail in order to protect the local tobacco crop.

Inside the shells were silver iodide, a chemical that helps to break up hail into rain.

Their own investigators concluded that one shell must have failed to explode, hit the house, and lodged in Mr Wang's body. There it passed unnoticed because of his extensive injuries, according to local newspaper reports.

As a result, and three years after Mr Wang died, his family have now received 80,000 yuan (£8,000) in compensation from the weather bureau.

source: The Telegraph

"Meteorologists in Beijing have artificially created snowfall by cloud-seeding to deal with drought conditions. The 11 hour snowfall took place yesterday as scientists saw an opportunity for artifical precipitation to be created. This marks the earliest snowfall in Beijing since 1987." source:nowpublic.com

"China’s meteorologists are desperate to alleviate a prolonged drought gripping swaths of the country. Zhang Qiang, head of the Beijing Weather Modification Office, said: "We won’t miss any opportunity of artificial precipitation since Beijing is suffering from a lingering drought."

With forecasts for precipitation and a sharp drop in temperatures at the weekend, the meteorologists saw their chance. From 8pm on Saturday they fired 186 silver iodide capsules into clouds heavy with snow to help the precipitation. The result was snow that fell for 11 hours from the early hours of Sunday until mid-afternoon" source:Timesonline.co.uk

"The cloud-seeding process exceeded the normal snowfall amount by 16 tonnes, causing huge airport delays and flight cancellations. This years Beijing snowfall comes six weeks prior to last year's first snowfall. The snow has mostly cleared as of today and will not return until the naturally occurring snowfalls that will take place later in the year." source: nowpublic.com

China daily

"A cold front accompanied by strong winds will continue to push down temperatures across the country in the coming two days.

Most parts of the country huddled up against the cold over the weekend as snow fell and the mercury dropped by nearly 10 C, while in North China temperatures plunged by more than 20 C yesterday.

Beijing's first snowfall this winter, which began on Saturday night and lasted until Sunday afternoon, surprised locals. Temperatures in the city hit a low of -3 C yesterday, the coldest since autumn began.

The municipal weather modification office used artificial means to increase the snow in order to ease the lingering drought.


Time.com


(...) The effectiveness of cloud-seeding is still disputed, because it's difficult to say with any certainty that cloud-seeding is responsible for a storm rather than Mother Nature. But if you choose to believe in cloud-seeding, the Chinese scientists may have even overdone it. The snowstorm lasted for 11 hours, disrupting flights in and out of Beijing and hampering shipping off the Chinese coast. Still, expect few complaints from the generally dry region; it's the most accumulation the city's seen in a decade, and further proof the Chinese may be becoming the world's best at managing weather"

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1934090,00.html#ixzz0WM4H3lTO

Currently still working on performances inside amphitheatre, whilst planning major works in stone.