Hector (cloud) is known for its consistency and intensity. Lightning rates and updraft speeds are notable aspects of this thunderstorm and during the 1990s National Geographic Magazine published a comprehensive study of the storm with pictures of damaged trees and details of updraft speeds and references to tornadic events. Since the late 1980s the thunderstorm has been the subject of many meteorological studies, many centred on Hector itself but also utilising the consistency of the storm cell to study other aspects of thunderstorms and lightning. Hector (cloud) Hector is the name given to a cumulonimbus, or thundercloud, that forms regularly nearly every
Cloud seeding is used to increase precipitation in areas experiencing drought, to reduce the size of hailstones that form in thunderstorms, and to reduce the amount of fog in and around airports. In the summer of 1948, the usually humid city of Alexandria, Louisiana, under Mayor Carl B. Close, seeded a cloud with dry ice at the municipal airport during a drought; quickly 0.85 inches of rainfall occurred. Cloud seeding is occasionally used by major ski resorts to induce snowfall. Eleven western states and one Canadian province (Alberta) have ongoing weather modification operational programs. In January 2006, an $8.8 million cloud seeding