QUEENSLAND “rainmaker” Peter Stevens has claimed credit for some recent rain and says there’s more to come in the next couple of weeks.
While the Bureau of Meteorology has predicted 5-10mm of rain for central Queensland this Saturday, Gold Coast-based Mr Stevens was expecting to fire up his atmospheric ionisation technology at Lightning Ridge late on Wednesday.
He was predicting rain after about 24 hours of “firing” from his circular “dish” with mirrors and lights that he says causes the atmosphere to ionise and attract rain when a vortex is created.
Ionisation technology attracts its fair share of sceptics and the former Australian-based company named Aquiess, which also uses ground-based ionisation equipment and claims to have broken a drought in Victoria in 2005 and in the Horn of Africa several years ago, has been criticised on a Weatherzone forum for failing to provide proper evidence.
Another company named Australian Rain Technologies employs similar technologies, but provides "reviews by independent scientists".
“I’m not sure what they have been doing recently but they use the Russian (Atlant) technology,” Mr Stevens said.
Mr Stevens is also unable to cite scientific proof of his claims, only anecdotal evidence from early 1990s and again from 2006 until now.
Mechanical rainmaking goes way back to 1902 in Charleville when Queensland’s chief meteorologist Clement Wragge employed his own version of devices called Stiger Vortex Guns, apparently used successfully in Italy to dispel hail that threatened grape crops.
But Wragge’s 16 cannons failed to produce rain despite firings at Charleville, Roma or Harrisville.
Meanwhile Mr Stevens is confident his latest ionisation “shoot” will attract rain across the eastern states inland from Mildura to as far north as Longreach.
“We should get two and a half inches in the Ridge area,” he said. “We’re targeting about 200km north west of Bourke. Up north Monto should get a good inch.”
A property owner north west of Bourke is sponsoring Mr Stevens’ latest seven-day mission.
“They basically had no rain for 18 months but we recently managed to get them about two inches.”
Mr Stevens said the grazier would probably wish to remain anonymous at this stage.
He said his last “shoot” at Lightning Ridge was from August 11-18, which he said produced 37mls in the local area and “more than two inches” (25+mls) around Bourke.
“What we do is energize or charge the atmosphere electromagnetically with a high negative ionised charge. It makes the atmosphere more attractive to moisture particles. We like to see blue sky to start and it takes about 24 hours to start rain.”
The Bureau of Meteorology was predicting light to moderate rain over much of NSW yesterday but nothing for inland areas in the next few days.
