Sochi, Russia, the host city of next month's Winter Olympics, is
nothing close to cold right now. The temperature hovers at a
very mild 55 degrees which means it's very far from freezing
which means it's very far from snowing. But. Like. Um. You kind
of need snow to host a Winter Olympics. So Sochi enlisted the
help of snow machines to get man made snow spewed for the games.
Snow machines have always been used for the Olympics so it's
nothing especially new to see. What's fascinating though is
seeing SMI Snow Makers, the weather gods behind the man made
snow, talk to National Geographic about the entire process of
making snow, where they're pulling in their water source, what
type of pressure is necessary how good of a quality their snow
product is (equivalent to two week old natural snow) and just
seeing the snow machines blow. It's a lovely haze.