Study of hailstorms cells producing big damages in Mendoza (Argentina)

The Provincial Government of Mendoza (Argentina), had protected the local crops from the hail damage during five seasons (1999-2004) by contracting an operational service. These operations consisted in silver iodide seeding (AgI) methodology by means of several aircrafts. The aircrafts were provided with meteorological instruments and probes, which allowed obtaining an important amount of data about the hailstorm in this region. A cloud seeding program is normally developed to augment precipitation or to suppress (or reduce) hail by means of a glaciogenic seeding agent, such as the above mentioned AgI. The seeding agent nucleate ice crystals in clouds containing supercooled cloud liquid water to generate high concentrations of ice crystal competing with the existing supercooled cloud liquid water, therefore a massive dose of seeding agents are needed to obtain a beneficial ratio. This process depletes the cloud water, allowing only a modest growth of the ice sizes.