ADVERTENT INADVERTENT EFFECT ON RAINFALL CENTER DISPLACEMENT IN NORTHERN ISRAEL

This study of cloud seeding and urbanization effects on the spatial rainfall distribution was carried out in two stages. In the first stage the location of a 'rainfall center' (the area with the rainfall maximum) for annual amounts of rainfall was established by applying the Distance Correlation Matrix (DISTCORMAT) technique. Besides 'natural' climatic fluctuations there are two other factors which could also cause a shift in the 'rainfall center', namely, cloud seeding operations and the inadvertent urban influences. Rainfall centers were computed for the two experimental cloud seeding periods and for a subsequent period of operational seeding. Comparison of the DISTCORMAT outputs revealed that the 'rainfall centers' are located, as expected, in the Upper Galilee for the first experimental period and later were displaced westward by 2-4 km. Since in the second random experiment the seeding flight route and target area were shifted eastward, it seems that there is no evidence supporting the cloud seeding rainfall excess determined by various statistical methods. However, it is possible to attribute the center's displacement to the massive urbanization process along the Mediterranean coastal plane. In the second stage only 40 rain stations in the extreme northern part of the country were used and the DISTCORMAT was computed separately for 'seeded days' and' non-seeded days'. The results indicate that, although the center moved eastward on 'seeded days' during the second experiment, it moved westward for the 'non-seeded days' sample. Thus the finding offers evidence of both effects: advertent cloud seeding and the inadvertent urbanization factor.