While Summer Just Ended, Ski Resort Managers are Already Planning Their Season and Their Artificial Snow Manufacturing

Summer may just have ended, but the drop in temperatures makes us feel like fall is already here. While some of us miss summer’s warm days, others who do not enjoy heat are happy about autumn’s arrival. Ski Resort managers, on the other, can’t wait for winter to start so they can launch a new season of skiing and snowboarding for their snow sports enthusiast customers. One important aspect of managing a ski resort is the production of artificial snow. Indeed, it ensures that slopes can still be used when snowfalls are few and far between during the season. Do you know how artificial snow is made? In this article, we will explain you how it is done.

Before Talking About Artificial Snow, Let’s Talk About Natural Snow

Everyone knows that water can be found under 3 forms : gas, solid and liquid. Indeed, water becomes a gas at 100 ° C (212 °F), solid at 0 ° C (32 °F) and it is liquid at temperatures between gas and solid states. Did you know that it can also be liquid between 0 ° C (32 °F) to -39 ° C (-38,2 °F)? At this temperature, water is in a very unstable state called supercooled. Indeed, when supercooled, water solidifies when it comes into contact with water droplets or dusts in the air. Snowflakes are the agglomeration of solidified water droplets.

How is Artificial Snow Made?

Now that you know how natural snow is made, you may be wondering how it is possible to reproduce a similar process artificially. To manufacture artificial snow, the principle of supercooled water is used just like in the case of natural snow.

First, snow cannons spray water into the air through tiny nozzles in order to create water droplets since the desired result is the instant freezing of the water when it exits the cannon. Now, if you remember what we said earlier, a solidification reaction needs to occur. To obtain this reaction, snow cannons are also equipped with other nozzles that spray a mixture of water and compressed air that triggers the transformation of water into artificial snow when in contact with the water sprayed by the water nozzles.

Since artificial snow production is crucial for many mountains, their managers need to be able to count on robust and reliable snow hoses to feed snow cannons since water is being transported in them at a high pressure.

This concludes this article on how artificial snow is done. We hope that you learned a thing or two along the way!