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In Wen Jifen's office in the compound of the Guizhou provincial meteorological administration in southwest China, a map of Guizhou Province is dotted by the colors of red and yellow. "The red color singles out the nine poverty-stricken counties in Guizhou, while the yellow ones refer to those that have already cast off poverty but still have a large number of poor residents," said Wen, 56.
Wen is the head of the meteorological administration and a chief engineer there. The map is part of the administration's efforts to help shield those in the impoverished areas from the damages of bad weather.
"We observe the weather in these key monitored areas very carefully with radar," she said. "Whenever bad weather is taking shape over these areas and hail might hit, we inform local meteorological bureaus to send 'bombs' up in the air to change the weather."
What the meteorological staff do is send silver iodide in the bombs into the air, she said.
"Silver iodide can absorb the 'cores' that form big hailstones, so big hailstones become small," Wen said.
As the small hail falls down, it melts much more easily in the air than big hail, so the damage to crops is greatly reduced, she added.
Wen said that without human intervention, the big hailstones would fall on the crops grown by local farmers and lead to significant economic loss.
"We try to decrease the damage as much as possible by artificially altering the bad weather," she said.
Guizhou is one of China's least developed provinces and is at the forefront of China's campaign to eradicate absolute poverty in 2020. Many poor residents in Guizhou make a living by growing vegetables and crops.
But as the province is located in the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, it sees a lot of strong convective weather and thus a lot of hail, especially during springtime. Such weather has frequently damaged crops and strained local economic growth in the past.
Hail has a strong negative impact on poverty-relief industries such as fruits and vegetables. It reduces the output, even to zero in extreme cases, Wen said.
"These impoverished counties were under heavy pressure, so meteorological people like me are paying special attention to them," Wen said. "We intentionally change the weather in those areas to help their crops grow better."
The province has 478 fixed bomb-launching sites and 230 movable rockets to launch the silver iodide bombs, and almost every county in Guizhou has at least one fixed launching site.
"Rockets can be carried on vehicles and so can cover a wider area," Wen said. "Rockets also have a longer range."
This year, Wen's task has been particularly hard.
Compared with previous years, the convective weather hit Guizhou much earlier this year, Wen said.
"Guizhou began to see hail at the end of 2019," she said.
In late March, Guizhou saw convective weather in 20 counties. Wen pulled an all-nighter to inform local bureau staff and monitor the weather. In April, most areas in Guizhou saw strong convective weather, and the administration issued countermeasures to Guizhou localities.
"Sometimes convective weather can last a few days, and we have to work through the night," she said. "If bad weather is taking shape, we inform local bureaus to take preventive measures against hail while continuously watching the weather conditions."
This year, the province conducted artificial intervention against bad weather by shooting 24,324 bombs from 736 fixed launching sites. A total of 316 bombs were sent via rockets to mitigate the damages from heavy hail.
Wen said the job is tough, but also worthwhile.
"We can do something for the public, and that is a great thing," she said.
