“The snow? We forced it to fall!”
Beijing’s Weather Modification office bombed the clouds and set up the artificial precipitation, the officer in charge said about yesterday’s exceptional snowfall
The intense snowfall that covered the Olympic Shooting Range of Beijing on Sunday, during the Trap and Skeet qualifications of the 2009 ISSF Shotgun World Cup Final, was not 100% natural. Over 16 millions of tons of snow fallen over the city were “produced” artificially.
Beijing’s Weather Modification Office worked on it, using the same system studied to prevent Beijing’s Olympic Games from the rain. This time, the Silver Iodidte used to “make it rain” was used to stop the heavy clouds on the sky of the city, as Beijing is suffering from the drought.
“We wont miss any opportunity of artificial precipitation since Beijing is suffering from the lingering drought” said Ms. Zhang Qiang, in charge of the Weather Modification office to the Chinese news agency Xinhua.
“We have used a total of 186 doses of silver iodide since 8:00 p.m. on Saturday,” she said “adding 16 million tonnes of snow to the preliminary calculation.”
“Sounds great! I had never shot before in the snow…” ironically commented Beijing’s Olympic Champion Vincent Hancock, from the USA, who yesterday competed under an extraordinary snowfall. “I cannot believe it!” Added Danka Bartekova, the Slovakian finalist of yesterday’s Skeet Women event.
“You might say it’s just bad luck – said Norway’s Tore Brovold, Skeet Silver medallist at the last Games – But this Final comes late in the season, they should have known that we were going to face a difficult weather here. You can get used to shoot in the snow, but it takes time and training. And this is the first snow of the season, for me. I come from Norway, what about the others? During the snowfall, yesterday, the visibility was very poor. Today the sun is shining, but it’s not much better due to the fastidious light-reflection…”
“It has been great anyway! - siad the Indian Double Trap ace Ronjan Sodhi smiling – I had never seen the snow before in my life! I was hoping to see snow at the 2007 World Cup Final in Belgrade, and at the 2008 Wolrd Cup Final in Minsk, but it did not come… so, this is my first time!”
“Of course, he competed on saturday, before the snowfall!” somebody noted.
