Alberta hail seeding operation protects against severe storm damage

When massive storm clouds build, pilots at the Springbank and Red Deer airports scramble into action in their twin engine King Air C90 cloud seeding aircraft.

The teams are supported by meteorologists on the ground at the Didsbury/Olds Airport who monitor the building storms on their radar.

Adam Brainard is the chief meteorologist with Weather Modification International, and says there are four meteorologists shifted to work around the clock.

"We cover from the north near Ponoka, south to about High River, west from about Sundre and east to about Three Hills," he said.

Brainard says even though Calgarians may think there has been a lot of severe thunderstorms to date, it has been average so far. However, he warns storm activity is now expected to pick up.

"This is peak season," he said. "July and early August, that's our busiest time of year, it's when we see the most hail storms."

Brainard says the operations are a team effort between the air and ground crews because pilots and co-pilots who see storms building in real time can let meteorologists know what's happening before it appears on their radar screens.

"What we see on the radar is always a few minutes old, the radar scan takes four and a half minutes to process and then there's a little lag in getting it displayed on the screen," Brainard said. "(Pilots) see things as they happen, so they can usually give us a heads up on what's going to happen, even five minutes before we see it on the radar."

The aircraft are equipped with two methods of delivering silver iodide into a storm cell: Flares on the wings can be lit for seeding at the bottom of the storm while canisters below the aircraft can deliver the product into the top of a storm cloud.

The tiny silver iodide particles attract water droplets in the cloud and will create thousands of small hailstones, instead of letting them develop into larger, more destructive ones.

"We're funded by insurance (companies in Alberta) and they haven't been disappointed," said Terry Krauss, the program director. "It's many, many insurance companies and our board of directors are all insurance people."

The Insurance Bureau of Canada says the 2023 total of claims paid out to clients hasn't been calculated yet, but since 2018 insurance companies in Alberta have paid out more than $3.5 billion in severe weather insurance claims.

Mitchell Oswald is one of the pilots with Audrey Petit sitting in the co-pilot seat.

He says they typically fly at 22,000 feet to get above the storm cell.

"It's surprisingly smooth, until we make the pass and what we're doing is, we're focusing on the feeder clouds that get sucked into the main cell of the storm," Oswald said.

"Those turrets or bulbous formations you can see on the edge of the storm, that's what we're specifically targeting."

He says it took a while for him to get used to flying toward a storm when the instinct of most pilots have is to avoid them.

Brainard says he enjoys his work and the team aspect of it, especially working closely with the air crews.

"I love the interaction with the pilots you get here and I love the challenge, it's really difficult to predict where that storm is going to be in 30 minutes or if there is going to be a storm, but it's a very dynamic environment and I love it."

He says the team feels a sense of responsibility to property owners and pride at reducing damage.

"These are people's lives," said Brainard. "These are people's cars and houses and roofs and if there's something we can do to help mitigate that damage, we want to do it the best we can."