GEORGE TOWN (Feb 29): No rainfall was recorded during or after Wednesday’s cloud seeding operations in the catchment areas (WCA) of Air Itam dam and Teluk Bahang dam, said the Penang Water Supply Corporation (PBAPP).

PBAPP chief executive officer K Pathmanathan cited unfavourable atmospheric and cloud conditions as the likely factors for the absence of rainfall.

“Cloud seeding may usually induce more rainfall if there are rain clouds at a specific altitude.

“If there are no clouds, not enough clouds, or if the air temperature is too high for water drops to form in the clouds and fall, cloud seeding may not induce any rainfall.

“As such, these cloud seeding operations did not and will not increase the effective capacities of the two dams,” he said in a statement on Thursday.

Pathmanathan hoped that the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) would commission the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) to conduct additional cloud seeding operations in Penang next month.

Meanwhile, he said that the effective capacity of the Air Itam dam stood at 37% on Thursday, marking a significant decrease of 31.9% from its capacity of 68.9% on Jan 1.

According to Pathmanathan, the Teluk Bahang dam had an effective capacity of 95.4% on Jan 1, but it has dropped to 79.1% on Thursday, showing a difference of 16.3%.

“The maximum effective capacity of the Air Itam dam is 2,160 million litres (ML) while the Teluk Bahang dam's capacity stands at 18,240 JL. In terms of water volume, a 1% drop in the effective capacity of the Teluk Bahang dam (182.4 ML) is roughly equivalent to an 8.4% drop in the effective capacity of the Air Itam dam,” he said.

Pathmanathan said that the effective capacity of the Air Itam dam was low on Feb 5 but it increased by 4.2% from 32.8% to 37% on Thursday.

“Although there has only 45mm of rainfall in the Air Itam dam WCA and the weather has been hot, this is due to the Air Itam Dam Action Plan 2024 [AIDAP 2024],” he said.

Under AIDAP 2024, PBAPP has reduced daily drawdowns from the Air Itam dam by 75%, resulting in a 66% decrease in treated water output from the Air Itam Dam Water Treatment Plant (WTP).

Pathmanathan said that to ensure water supply sufficiency in Air Itam, PBAPP is pumping 33 million litres of treated water per day (MLD) from the Sungai Dua WTP in Seberang Perai into the service area of the Air Itam WTP.

“The success of the AIDAP 2024 in ‘defending’ the Air Itam dam until the next rainy season is dependent on three key factors.

“The factors are availability of sufficient treated water from the Sungai Dua WTP and raw water from Sungai Muda, Kedah; sufficient raw water inflow into five raw water intakes for the Air Itam dam and Air Itam WTP on Penang Island; and prudent water consumption by the 30,000 water consumers in the Air Itam water supply service area,” he said.