Silver Iodide

Rainmakers, well, this is not the movie but silver iodide (Agl), the compound used for cloud seeding. Weather Modification Office (WMO) in Beijing-China did spray the clouds with 186 doses of the compound to bring rains for the wheat crop in Beijing, but snow was the unexpected result.

The crystalline structure of silver iodide like ice has the property to induce freezing to be used for rainmaking. About 10-50 grams of silver iodide is used for a single experiment.

The Chinese Weather Modification Office tried for the rains as the northern part of China observes a drought like situation while Southern part is often flooded. Zhang Qiang, head of the modification office iterated that they would not like to miss any chance of precipitation as the Beijing was suffering a lingering drought.

Chinese in Beijing were not expecting such a heavy snow which started Sunday morning and lasted till afternoon. In response to weather forecast almost all of them were expecting a brushing snow, but the real snow disrupted the rail and road systems. The Chinese woke in a different state of mind of Sunday, not cladding for such a chilly weather. The snow falling disrupted the road, rail and air travel.

The artificial rain making is under question by many scientists in the world who argue that eruption of rain from clouds could not be judged if it was due to silver iodide or spontaneous.

Whatever the scientists think, the people in China have enjoyed an early snow onto Tiananmen Square in China’s capital Beijing, actually breaking record of earlier snow of ten years.