A team of 14 pilots are on call from June through mid-September specializing in getting ahead of Alberta’s worst storms. yyc
Depending on the severity, two or even three planes will take to the sky at once.The planes are equipped with 48 flares on the wings that burn in-place for four-and-a-half minutes on the wings and then underneath the belly of the plane are 306 more that are dropped right into the storm.Inside each of the flares is silver iodide mixed with magnesium. The clouds are seeded with it in hopes of speeding up the rain process, ideally before the hail process turns pea-sized particles into grapefruits.
Property owners are well-acquainted with the impact Alberta’s so-called ‘hail alley’ is capable of — as are insurance agencies. “The insurance industry continues to pay for our project because we can reduce the damage,” said Terry Krauss who acts as a mediator between the insurance industry and the hail suppression team. He provides weekly reports highlighting WMI’s work to minimize storm damage.
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