Variability of Summer and Autumn Total Precipitation in the Area of Long-term Hail Suppression Activities in the Republic of Moldova

Abstract

The study presents the results of the comparative analysis of statistical characteristics for summer and autumn precipitation over the 60-year observation period in the territories protected against hail and in adjoining areas. It is found that a trend toward the precipitation decrease in May–August is observed at all analyzed weather stations. At the same time, at the weather stations located in the center of protected territories, the precipitation increases by 7–9% as compared to the background weather station. The statistical verification using the F-test corroborated the change in the characteristics of summer total precipitation at Korneshty weather station (the protected territory) at the significance level of 0.05. It is revealed that a 30% increase is registered at weather stations in the area of hail suppression activities in September (the increase in total precipitation by the first month after the end of antihail activities). The authors associate this fact with the presence of the “aftereffect” of cloud seeding with the reagents based on silver iodide.