http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=97018
"Bolstered" Clouds Help Fill Kinneret
11:51 Jan 20, '06 / 20 Tevet 5766
By Hillel Fendel
The level of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), where Israel looks to see how its water supplies are faring, rose five centimeters this week. Cloud-seeding continues.
The level of the lake, Israel's largest water reservoir, now stands at 211.56 meters below sea level, two and 3/4 meters below its optimal level. Each ten centimeters (4 inches) of Kinneret height mean another 17 million cubic meters of water, or roughly 2.5% of the country’s annual consumer demand.
Ronen Wolfmann, Director-General of Israel's public water company Mekorot (lit., sources), reported this week that the company had carried out approximately 200 hours of cloud-seeding flight-hours this winter - some 60% more than average. Cloud-seeding is done during the rainy season, from November to April, when the meteorological conditions - clouds, wind direction, and cloud temperatures - are favorable. Cloud-seeding is done preferably over the Kineret, and also over the Mountain Aquifer.
Mekorot reports that cloud-seeding increases rainfall in the north by an annual average of 13%, or 60 million cubic meters. This works out to a cost of only 10 agorot (just over 2 cents) per cubic meter, a fraction of the cost of desalinated water.