18 April 2007
China claims to have created artificial snowfall
(Xinhua) Chinese officials claimed to have created an artificial snowfall over northern Tibet. In a report from Lhasa, the official Xinhua news agency said that the local meteorological department created the snowfall a week ago, which left about one centimetre of snow on the ground at an altitude of 4,500 meters. A spokesman for the Tibet meteorological office said artificial snowfall was created by seeding the clouds with particles of silver iodide. The event occurred in Nagchu [Chin: Nagqu] county in the TAR. Yu Zhongshui, an engineer with the meteorological station said it is considered difficult to generate artificial snow or rain in high altitude areas because of unsuitable conditions for the formation of hydrometeors needed to produce them. Many weather experts doubt the effectiveness of cloud seeding, in part because it is impossible to prove a cloud would not have shed snow or rain without being seeded. The technique is common in China, where officials have used it to trigger downpours before public holidays to clear the skies of pollution. The authorities plan to use it before the 2008 Olympics