Date of Award

January 2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Atmospheric Sciences

First Advisor

David D. Delene

Abstract

The Alberta Hail Suppression Project is an operational weather modification program designed to reduce hailstone induced property damage that has been conducted in the area around Calgary and Red Deer since 1996. Evaluation of the project is done using the project’s C-band radar located at Olds and an Environment Canada operated C-band radar at Strathmore. An in-depth, manual review of radar data from the 2017 seeding operations has identified 21 seed cases and 15 non-seed cases. The effectiveness of seeding is determined using hail indicators of Maximum Vertically Integrated Liquid (MaxVIL) and storm area greater than or equal to 60 dBZ (Ar60) by comparing before and during seeding observations for the 21 seed cases. Several different seeding effectiveness metrics are evaluated with the Increasing Hail Ratio metric having the highest value of 0.12 for both MaxVIL and Ar60 indicators. A positive metric indicates a reduction in damaging hail, with 1 being the highest possible value. The metrics are based on the 2017 season where there are only 21 cases; however, the data set could be expanded by incorporating 2014 to 2020 years of observations since the radar configuration is similar.

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