• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Hail Cannon : These don't actually work - DO they?

Joined
Mar 21, 2005
Messages
1,191
Location
Kearney, NE
Hail cannons are supposed to break up the formation of hail (and don't claim to break up already-formed hailstones). Is there any evidence that they work? It seems a little silly to me. It seems silly to me to think that sound, even if it could disrupt the formation of hail, could not actually penetrate (without being blown away) to the heart of a meso. It's sound, so it would be affected by the winds. One thing is for sure, they do annoy the neighbors!

Cannons both hailed and blasted

Complaint set for court (wonder how that came out?)

How hail cannons work (by a New Zealand manufacturer)

The Wikipedia article quotes Charles Knight, a cloud physicist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado says, "I don't find anyone in the scientific community who would validate hail cannons, but there are believers in all sorts of things. It would be very hard to prove they don't work, weather being as unpredictable as it is."

I suppose that means that it is impossible to have a "control" supercell, as well as one that is being hit with the hail cannon.

See also: History Repeated: The Forgotten Hail Cannons of Europe (8 page pdf) Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 62, Issue 3 (March 1981)
 
Hail cannons are on the same scam level as lightning dissipation arrays - they defy common sense and any scientific reasoning. They are the 'miracle diet pills' of weather. It's just too bad that companies still peddle and customers actually still spend big bucks on junk science like this.
 
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