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How did Soviet hail-suppression programs deliver silver iodide or lead iodide into clouds?
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weather modification
Cloud seeding can produce an extra 5 to 15% of precipitation.
Soviet hail-suppression programs delivered silver iodide or lead iodide into the supercooled regions of clouds primarily using two methods:
- Rockets: These rockets carried a cylinder of pyrotechnic material impregnated with the seeding agents. The mixture could be ignited at various points along the rocket's flight path as it passed through the cloud, burning for approximately 45 seconds to disperse the nuclei.12
- Artillery: Soviet experimenters utilized 70-millimetre artillery guns to fire projectiles containing 100 to 200 grams of the seeding substances. These projectiles were designed to explode at a predetermined position within the cloud, effectively dispersing the ice nuclei.12
These techniques were intended to introduce ice nuclei directly into potential hailstorms to reduce the size of hailstones, thereby minimizing agricultural damage. While Soviet scientists reported significant success with these methods, the results have not been verified by independent testing.13