Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow! That's what you may be singing when Old Man Winter rolls through. But as you already know, Mother Nature doesn't always cooperate.


Sometimes, it might be below freezing at ground level where you are, yet you get rained upon. What's up with that? Even when it's cold at ground level, it might be much warmer up higher in the atmosphere, so moisture falls as rain rather than snow.

At other times, it might be above freezing at ground level, but you look out your window to discover beautiful snowflakes falling. That means it's probably much colder up high in the atmosphere.


Unfortunately, the weather conditions aren't always right for snow. That fact led some clever guys to invent a way to make snow with a machine way back in 1950. While many people call this manmade snow “artificial," it's actually made in much the same way that Mother Nature makes “real" snow.

Snow machines use water and compressed air to shoot tiny water droplets into the air. As these water droplets hit the cold air, they form ice crystals that fall to the ground as snow. So even if there's not enough moisture in the air to snow, machines can make it snow on command!


Of course, you can still make something close to snow even if temperatures aren't cold enough. In really warm areas, ice is sometimes chopped into tiny pieces and blown into the air to simulate snow.




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