Cloud Seeding Drone May Soon Help Get More Snow to the Sierra Nevada

Cloud seeding drones may soon be used to help get more punch out of Sierra storms. The unmanned aircrafts could provide significant benefits by getting more snow on the slopes and boosting water supply.

Jeff Tilley of Reno’s Desert Research Institute (DRI) unveiled one of three drones in the country at Thursday’s Operation Sierra Storm held in South Lake Tahoe. The drone will soon be tested to seed clouds in order to get more moisture out of storms to help in times of drought.

Drones can cost as much as $400,000 and can stay in the air for up to 15 hours and fly at speeds of up to 125 mph.

Clouds are currently seeded by ground based generators that are fixed in place so are not able to seed all potentially “good” clouds or by manned aircraft which are expensive and can be dangerous. DRI has led the cloud seeding efforts in the Lake Tahoe Basin since the 1970’s, generating an average of 13.5 billion gallons of water per year.

Nevada was just selected this week by the FAA as one of six states to begin testing unmanned aircrafts. Testing for cloud seeding is set to start in the Walker River drainage in the fall of 2014, with a drone likely operating out of Hawthorne and Stead and pilots controlling the aircraft from a high-tech trailer parked at the airports.

The community is invited to Friday's free session of Operation Sierra Storm at Harrah's South Shore Room. From 7:45 to 8:45 am, Virgil Welch will discuss plans for reducing greenhouse gas emission and from 9 to 10:15 am, Dr. Bill Collins, member of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize team will speak.