Synoptic and mesoscale pattern assoicated with super-cooled liquid water content over the Medicine Bow and Sierra Madre Mountains

Snowpack in the Western high mountains during the winter and the attendant spring runoff provides needed water to lower elevations. Agriculture, recreation, water supply, and hydro-electric power are but a few of the users of this renewable resource. Snowpack becomes even more critical over the Intermountain West during the moderate to extreme drought conditions reported by NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC). Although Snowpack telemetry (SNOTEL) sites within the Medicine Bow and Sierra Madre Mountain ranges initially recorded snow water equivalents (SWE's) nearly 130% of average by February 2006, much of the Intermountain West remained below seasonal normals. Cloud seeding technology for enhanced snowpack may be beneficial for long-term water management. The Wyoming Weather Modification Pilot Project is a five-year cloud seeding program contracted by the Wyoming Water Development Commission. The program contains a cloud seeding phase with snowpack and runoff evaluations within weather patterns that would produce the snowfall over the mountains. It is more important in cloud seeding operations to find synoptic and mesoscale conditions that produce the greatest amount of super-cooled liquid water in clouds than the conditions that produce the greatest snowfall. This study is the initial step in examining the synoptic and mesoscale patterns over the Medicine Bow and Sierra Madre Mountains with the intent of identifying ideal seeding conditions. A future study will compare snowfall rates with WSR-88D Doppler radar reflectivity over the Medicine Bow and Sierra Madre Mountain ranges.