Explicit numerical simulations of hailstorm seeding with a three–moment microphysics cloud–resolving model: a comparison of two operational methodologies for hail suppression

Savić, Darko; Vučković, Vladan; Vujović, Dragana

doi:10.5194/acp-26-15785-2026

Articles | Volume 26, issue 21

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-15785-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-15785-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 21

Research article

|

10 Nov 2026

Research article |

| 10 Nov 2026

Explicit numerical simulations of hailstorm seeding with a three–moment microphysics cloud–resolving model: a comparison of two operational methodologies for hail suppression

Darko Savić, Vladan Vučković, and Dragana Vujović

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Final revised paper (published on 10 Nov 2026)
Preprint (discussion started on 08 Apr 2026)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on egusphere-2026-1411', Anonymous Referee #1, 13 Apr 2026

The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1411/egusphere-2026-1411-RC1-supplement.pdf

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1411-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Darko Savic, 14 Jul 2026
  
  The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1411/egusphere-2026-1411-AC1-supplement.pdf
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1411-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on egusphere-2026-1411', Julia Kukulies, 25 Jun 2026

The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1411/egusphere-2026-1411-RC2-supplement.pdf

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1411-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Darko Savic, 14 Jul 2026
  
  The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1411/egusphere-2026-1411-AC2-supplement.pdf
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1411-AC2

Peer review completion

AR – Author's response | RR – Referee report | ED – Editor decision | EF – Editorial file upload

AR by Darko Savic on behalf of the Authors (15 Jul 2026) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (26 Jul 2026) by Luisa Ickes

RR by Julia Kukulies (28 Jul 2026)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (10 Aug 2026)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Dear authors, thank you for answering the reviewers' questions in such detail and with care. Reviewing your manuscript again, I still have several comments that should be resolved before I would reconsider the manuscript for publication.

- Statistical significance: I fully understand that running these simulations with such detailed aerosol and cloud microphysics is costly. Hence, any ensemble approaches are not feasible. Nonetheless, I would like to at least see a statistical significance of the changes upon seeding. Are these changes statistically significant from the domain mean and variance of the CTRL simulation? I believe this is the absolute minimum that needs to be done, such that the results can be interpret in its context. Otherwise, given the chaotic nature of convective systems, these results may well be disproved with an ensemble approach. Here it would also be needed to state in the methods part how this numbers are calculated, e.g., with a cloud mask and then averaging etc. This is currently missing.
- Visual presentation of the results: The authors greatly reduced the amount of figures, which is great because it avoids needing to flip through several pages of the manuscript to understand their conclusion points. Several propositions follow here: (1) for the process rates I would increase the lienwidth by more such that it is visible, especially, Figure 8, the grey lines for the processes "Sedimentation" and "Convert small raindrops to cloud droplets" are barely visible. Here I am also wondering if a larger averaging window than 1 min could be applied because this detailed information is not needed on a timescale of 170 min. This would also help with the quite noisy pattern in several of the variables. I also caution the authors again to check the numerical precision they actually can achieve. Figure 17, e.g., is not well readable given the strong noise in "Conversion of graupel to hail" (2) The addition of the vertical lines of the seeding cycles in **all** figures makes them even busier and less reader-friendly. Would it be possible to only have them in the section describing the aerosol microphysics (Figure 4) and omit them in the other figures? A different suggestion would be to have the plotted lines with markers at the time of seeding to represent when the seeding cycle starts. (3) Combine the mass and number figures for each category and aim for having the same family of color for similar processes (this won't be identical of course given processes acting on either mass or number). Currently, the reader always needs to refamiliarize themselves with each figure, because the number of processes (naturally) changes, which is challenging to fully understand the results. Having the mass and number next to each other as two subplots further reduces the number of figures and helps with clarity of arguments because they can be more easily compared. In the same spirit, figures 20 and 21 could also be combined into one. For Figure 7, please adapt the process name for cloud droplet activation from "Nucleation of cloud droplets" to "Activation of cloud droplets"; cloud droplets do not nucleate in our atmosphere. For Figure 18, the contour line for 1 mm h-1 can be removed because this is the mask by which it is filtered by 1 mm h-1 from the CTRL simulation? How does actually the green dashed line emerge if the masking is done?
- Streamlining of discussion and conclusion: I believe the last sections will benefit from streamlining all the points, because now it is evident that it emerged from merging two sections.
- Incorporating of minor comments from reviewers: In several instances comments of minor nature from the reviewers should be incorporated as well, such as the splitting if timesteps, etc. Of course not all, but it should be done to a larger extent because future readers might have similar questions.

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (09 Sep 2026) by Luisa Ickes

AR by Darko Savic on behalf of the Authors (22 Sep 2026) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (13 Oct 2026) by Luisa Ickes

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (20 Oct 2026)

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (03 Nov 2026) by Luisa Ickes

AR by Darko Savic on behalf of the Authors (04 Nov 2026) Manuscript

Short summary

Due to rising economic losses from the hailstorms, it is important to evaluate the effectiveness of hail suppression. This research examines how cloud seeding affects hail characteristics using a three-dimensional numerical model. Simulations show that both seeding methodologies significantly reduce hail kinetic energy and potential crop damage, providing a better understanding of hail suppression effectiveness.