By Jennifer Dorsett
Field Editor

Several drought-stricken counties near Abilene may soon see cloud-seeding planes in the sky. Hopefully, those are followed by thunderclouds and rain.

A legal notice was recently placed in the Abilene Reporter-News announcing an application with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation for a state permit to conduct “weather modification operations” in the Rolling Plains Water Improvement Association area. Counties in the area include Nolan, Fisher, Jones, Haskell, Stonewall, Knox and Baylor.

A representative for Seeding Operations and Atmospheric Research (SOAR), the company who filed the application and placed the notice, said in an interview WITH WHO? the cloud seeding will possibly begin at the end of April or early May.

Texas Farm Bureau District 3 State Director Mark Daniel resides in Baylor County, where he said conditions are dry but not as dry as Knox County.

“We’ve been dry and extremely windy. West of us, they’re worse off,” Daniel said, referring to Knox County. “It’s serious. The wheat harvest is going to be pretty dismal this year.”

Daniel noted Baylor County previously participated in cloud seeding around 2011, which has been Texas’ driest year on record. But he wasn’t sure of its efficacy at that time.

“If the seeding would work, that would be great,” Daniel said. “We might get some rain this week, and that would be a blessing.”

Dale Adams, the manager of Wes-Tex Groundwater Conservation District, told the Abilene Reporter-News Nolan County has participated in cloud seeding for the past three years.

“We went four years here in Nolan County on 30 inches of rain total, and our annual rainfall for this area is supposed to be 25 inches a year,” Adams said. “So, we thought that we had to do something to at least try to help the situation.”

The technology works by using two different chemical agents to encourage larger water droplets to form around ice crystals deep inside clouds, then migrate to warmer parts of the cloud where it will fall as precipitation.

The counties scheduled to receive the treatment are all listed in the U.S. Drought Monitor as abnormally dry to extreme drought conditions as of April 10.