Amid Historic Wildfires, New Mexico Starts Cloud Seeding.

No longer a conspiracy.

I have been on wildfires where I saw the weather change quickly and then rain started falling. One of the most obvious times was on a fire in the Boise National Forest. Large tankers flying overhead on a blue bird day until slowly rain clouds developed. I turned to the folks around me and said “this looks like cloud seeding”. They told me I was a nut. That is until the Incident Meteorologist or IMET let it slip the next morning that indeed they had been seeding. It became quite the controversy and a circle of folks quickly gathered to ask me “what is cloud seeding”.

New Mexico announced recently that they have given the green light to cloud seeding services over their State. The Interstate Stream Commission in New Mexico has contracted the Seeding Operations and Atmospheric Research company out of Texas to run the operation. The first mission is expected soon if it already hasn’t started. The Commission said this is a tool that can be utilized to improve drought stricken counties and help with wildfires in the State. The Calf Canyon Fire saw light snow flurries and precipitation this morning.

The Baker River Hotshots this morning on Calf Canyon. Photo: Baker River Hotshots

There are a few questions that need to be asked though. The process of cloud seeding uses silver iodide sprayed into the atmosphere to “sponge up” any moisture in the air. Then the man made storm clouds reach critical mass and rain begins to fall. So I ask these two questions.

1. Is silver iodide safe to have rain down on you?

2. Do the downstream communities lose their moisture?

To answer the first question I pulled up the MSDS or Material Safety Data Sheet for Silver Iodide. This is an official chemical analysis document that provides all the possible side effects of a chemical product.

This is what it said:

• Caution! May cause eye and skin irritation. May cause

  respiratory and digestive tract irritation. Light sensitive. May cause reproductive and fetal effects. The toxicological properties of this material have not been fully investigated.
  Target Organs: Thyroid.
  Potential Health Effects
  Eye: May cause