Snow Making Machine

When Mother Nature and Ullr, the Snow God, are less than generous with their seasonal snow, ski resorts can rely on a snow making machine, also known as a snow gun, for creating snow. However, ski areas are not the only places that use these machines.

While most people associate snow makers with ski areas, there are other lesser-known uses for this piece of equipment. These include:

• Movie Sets: A director is making a film with a scene requiring lots of snow. Unfortunately, Mother Nature refuses to cooperate. It's the snow making machine that comes to the rescue!
• Airplanes: Since airplanes fly high in the earth's atmosphere, they must be able to function in cold and snowy conditions. Thus, when aircraft designers are making new planes, they use snow machines to test how well the plane will function in these conditions.
• The Christmas Spirit: Some private homeowners use snow guns to create a snowy atmosphere around Christmas time.

Artificial snow machines strive to emulate nature's way of making snow. Since natural snow can range from dry to wet, snow machines create both types of snow. For example, for easier snow grooming, the snow maker might place a layer of dry snow over a layer of wet snow. This is one of the purposes of the snow guns you see at the ski resorts. Snow makers are more common at eastern resorts, but they are also seen in the west.

Snow guns produce water droplets by combining cooled water with compressed air. When you're on the slopes, you might notice snow guns that are attached to two different hoses: one for water hydrant stations and one for compressed air hydrant stations. These hydrants are attached to two different lines, which either run under the snow or underground.

The water hydrant pumps water from a lake, pond or reservoir, while the air hydrant pumps in high-pressure air from an air compressor. The compressed air atomizes and cools the water droplets, and blows them into the air. These compressed water droplets fall as snow.

There are three different types of snow making systems:

• External mix systems
• Internal mix systems
• Air, fan and water systems

Selection of a system depends on the weather conditions, since wind speed and direction, humidity and air temperature can all affect the snow making process. The availability of compressed air and electricity should also be taken into consideration.

In an internal mix system, compressed air and water are mixed in an internal chamber of the snow gun. As the mixture exits the snow gun nozzle, it cools to a temperature that is below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, tiny frozen droplets eventually become larger droplets, which in turn become snowflakes. Wind does not have a significant effect on internal mix systems.

In an external snow making system, the compressed air and water are mixed outside of the snow gun to form snow crystals. Since an external mix snow making system is slower than an internal mix system, it must be mounted on a tower. This gives the water droplets more time to form into snowflakes prior to reaching the ground.

External mix snow making systems are more energy efficient than internal mix. This is because they require less compressed air; however, unlike internal mix systems, they are highly affected by wind forces. Additionally, they require much colder temperatures.

Unlike internal and external mix systems, which use compressed air, this type of snow making system uses air from a fan to suspend the water droplets in the air. Since air, water and sand snow making systems suspend the droplets; they have a sufficient amount of time to cool to below 32 degrees Fahrenheit and freeze.

While the snow guns used in internal and external mix systems do not require an external power source, air, water and sand snow making systems need an electrical connection to power the fan. However, since they do not use compressed air, they are the most energy efficient of the three systems.

Snow making systems not only fill in the gap when not enough natural snow falls, but the ability to control the type of artificial snow also helps to improve conditions at ski resorts even when there's enough natural snow on the slopes.

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