Abstract
The current study conducted numerical experiments using nonhydrostatic mesoscale meteorological model to examine the mitigating effect of weather modification in the early stage of cloud development by cloud seeding on torrential rains. Based on simulated two heavy rain events in the Kitakyushu and Tokai regions of Japan, sensitivity analysis was performed by manipulating some conditions of cloud seeding implementation, i.e., area, height, time, duration time etc., in incremental steps. As a result, by carrying out cloud seeding in the early stages of cloud development, the mitigating effect was acquired from two or more viewpoints, and the mitigating effect appeared compared with the stage of cloud development. Results show that rainfall area and hourly rainfall, as well as maximum areal rainfall, can be decreased by cloud seeding, depending on the condition of its implementation, and that the number of cases with rainfall mitigation tends to be greater than that with rainfall promotion. It was also clarified that in the case of rainfall mitigation by cloud seeding the vertical updrafts at peak hour can become weak and the supplementary process can be supressed with increase of ice crystals after cloud seeding.
