The geographical location and diverse terrain of Bulgaria makes it one of the countries with the highest number of hail events in Europe.
Hail is a weather phenomenon extremely harmful to the agricultural crops.
The Bulgarian hail suppression agency was found in 1968 as a part of the Ministry of Agriculture. The Hail Suppression Agency now has protected area of 2 million hectares in the regions where hail damages have turned out to be the strongest: the districts of Vidin, Montana, Vratsa, Pleven, Pazardjik, Plovdiv, Stara Zagora, Sliven and Haskovo.
Real time meteorological radar information is transferred to the Ministry of Interior, Air Force, Bulgarian Air Traffic Services Authority, National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology, State Owned Enterprise “Management and Stewardship of dams” and Sofia Municipality.
The Hail Suppression Agency uses MRL-IRIS Doppler radars for monitoring the weather conditions and cloud seeding operations.
In Bulgaria, the method of delivery of reagent - artificial ice-forming nucleus (AgI) in clouds by rockets has been adopted. It enables the direct and continuous dispersion of reagent in seeding cloud areas.
The hail suppression concepts define: the seeding areas – the ones with high supercooled liquid water content and weаk updraft and the start of seeding – the early stage of development of hail dangerous clouds.
The strong updrafts provide new quantities of supercooled liquid water and carry up the ice crystals to its upper part (anvil). That is why, it is necessary to introduce ice-forming nuclei at regular intervals during the whole period of hail danger.
The effect of hail suppression activity reduces when the hail dangerous cloud comes to the protected area in a mature stage of development. The already formed hail falls to the ground. In these cases, cloud seeding reduces the further intensity of the process and the damages to agricultural crops.
Website: https://weathermod-bg.eu/
E-mail: agency@weathermod-bg.eu
Tel.: (02)9152 951