EXPERIMENT WITH DRY ICE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 137, 22 March 1948, Page 2

EXPERIMENT WITH DRY ICE

Attempt to Cause Rain Artificially

TESTS NOT CONSIDERED CONCLUSIVE

(P.A.) HASTINGS. March 20. Faced with the possible loss of valuable crops, a Hawke’s Bay farmer, Mr W. Shrimpton, this summer attempted to create artificial rain over his Matapiro Station property near Hastings. The experiment was the first of its kind undertaken in New Zealand, but although the flight was followed by a beneficial downpour, it i*3; considered by Mr Shrimpton that the tests really proved nothing because the fact that one or two clouds were seeded with dry ice would be insufficient cause for such general rain.

Arrangements for a supply of dry ice for the experiment were made by Mr Shrimpton when dry conditions threatened to cause heavy loss on 600 acres of rape and chon moellier. A wait of three weeks was necessary before suitable meteorological conditions developed. The dry ice was then flown from Auckland to Gisborne by a National Airways Corporation plane, and was brought on from there in one of the Hawke’s Bay and East Coast Aero Club’s machines.

The dry ice was held in cool store in Hastings overnight, and next day a Tiger Moth piloted by the club’s instructor, Mr M. T. Vanderpump, with Mr Shrimpton and the dry ice in the cockpit, flew to Matapiro Station, where it landed in a suitable field until the plan of action had been prepared. Taking off the same afternoon, the aircraft was taken up to a height of between 7000 feet and 8000 feet, where Mr Shrimpton, wearing asbestos gloves, unloaded 501 bof dry ice on to moist-looking cumulus clouds. Rain began to fall within a few minutes but there Avas nothing to prove that this was a result of the experiment.