Cloud Seeding Can Help Increase Snowfall — But Should It?

Transworld SNOWboarding | December 2015

With low-tide snow years on repeat, a couple of old snowboard bums are using cloud seeding science to make the flurries fly, and they’re getting better.

It’s late March in the High Sierra, a time when the 8,600-foot ridgeline that Frank McDonough is standing on would normally be covered with a healthy layer of spring corn. Not this year—as far as the eye can see, there is much more earth showing than patches of white. Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort closed a week ago—the fifth resort to call it a season already—and three more Tahoe resorts will be closed by the first week of April. California is in the midst of its worst drought ever. Ironically, as McDonough gazes out across the naked peaks, he’s standing beside a machine that can actually make it snow. It doesn’t make snow like the guns that spit shaved ice over groomers—it literally makes real snow fall from the sky. It’s called a cloud seeding generator… (read more)