Modern Systems
An explosive charge of acetylene gas and air is ignited in the lower chamber of the machine. As the resulting energy passes through the neck and into the cone it develops into a force that becomes a shock wave. This shock wave then travels at the speed of sound through the cloud formations above, a disturbance which manufacturers claim disrupts the growth phase of hailstones.
Manufacturers claim that what would otherwise have fallen as hailstones then falls as slush or rain. It is said to be critical that the machine is running during the approach of the storm in order to affect the developing hailstones, although all manufacturers unanimously agree that the area of effect of their device is only 100 to 200 square meters directly above.
Read more about this topic: Hail Cannon
Famous quotes containing the words modern and/or systems:
“No idea is so antiquated that it was not once modern. No idea is so modern that it will not someday be antiquated.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)
“Not out of those, on whom systems of education have exhausted their culture, comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of unhandselled savage nature, out of terrible Druids and Berserkirs, come at last Alfred and Shakespeare.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)