Hail Cannons III: The Final Conflict?

My favorite California news show, KQED's California Report, featured a slideshow and story today about hail cannons being used on some big farms around Fresno. Evidence Soup wrote about these cannons, and the lack of evidence demonstrating their effectiveness in preventing hail damage, in January, and also last July. KQED didn't provide any new evidence in the cannons' favor -- in fact, they interviewed an NCAR scientist who says nobody will ever know if they really work.

Sasha Khokha's slideshow includes closeups of the cannons, and some beautiful photos of fruit trees in full blossom. Since these farmers are spending their own hard-earned money on these things, I suppose the rest of us will wait and see if anyone comes up with hard evidence showing their effectiveness.

Comments

[Tracy Allison Altman]

Jeff, I agree ...to a point. Some neighbors of the cannon-firing farmers are starting to complain about noise and other "externalities", as the economists would say.

[Jeff]

We all have the right to piss our money in any direction we please. Sometimes the wind is in our favor and at other times, well, close your eyes.