Last winter was a non-starter and while that meant a savings for communities in terms of snow removable, likely reduced delays in air travel and also made highways safer it wasn’t so good for the ski resorts. While it is still too early to tell if Mother Nature will return with a vengeance ski resorts aren’t taking chances. Manmade snow has been around for decades, but snow-making is reportedly going high tech.
The Los Angeles Times reported that many resorts are making the shift from diesel air compressors that require workers to monitor and are adopting computerized systems that use fiber-optic cables to do the monitoring while low-energy fans are shooting out the snow. Much of this can now be controlled by smartphones. Yes, there is an app for making snow it seems. Continue reading Snow-Making Goes High Tech
While technically all snow is water that nature recycled it is generally pretty clean stuff. Nature does a pretty good job of getting the bad stuff out. But now some skiers who hit the slopes at Snowbowl in Arizona will have to wonder if the snow is quite as pure. That’s because the snow isn’t being falling from the skies but rather will be manmade and it is coming from treated sewage water.