Morocco - winter snowpack augmentation project

Evaluation covered the period 4/84-4/85 and was based on document review and interviews with project personnel. The project is making excellent early progress. Project-funded equipment installations, TA, and training are on schedule and the GOM has largely fulfilled its commitments regarding facilities, equipment, and staffing. Field operations, including 16 days of cloud seeding missions, were accomplished in the winter-spring seasons of 1984-85. These operations have provided the occasion for on-going evaluation and training and have yielded much needed weather data sets (radar, satellite, and aircraft) for planning future operations and for the scientific research just begun locally and in the United States. Training of and technology transfer to (highly motivated) GOM meteorologists and technicians are on schedule. Finally, the supporting agencies remain committed to the project, and the entities and individuals responsible for project management are reasonably well-organized. There are two problem areas, however: (1) the coordination of field operations; and (2) the cloud seeding system. In the first case, poor communications among the four widely scattered project sites have led to inferior operations during many precipitation periods and have kept project personnel from important interactions needed for learning and planning. In the second case, Moroccan Air Force aircraft were often unavailable for lengthy or nighttime seeding operations, due partly to military activities in the south. Two lessons have been learned. (1) The implementation of scientifically complex projects requires that all concerned understand that substantial time is needed to collect data in order to verify project impact. (2) The major constraint to the implementation of scientifically based weather modification projects is the provision and coordination of appropriate logistical support. Recommendations are to: (1) consolidate operations by locating project aircraft at Casablanca, and improve overall communications, training, maintenance, and coordination; (2) upgrade seeding operations by using aircraft capable of all weather flight, installing special meteorological systems on two aircraft, training at least two pilots in cloud seeding techniques; and initiate data collection and analysis by U.S. scientists to develop, install, and test a ground-based cloud seeding system in the mountains to supplement aircraft seeding. (Author abstract, modified)