Overnight lastnight.
Lastnight zoom.Got some updated news on Roast Beef & Rails. The event previously scheduled for this Saturday has been re-scheduled for Saturday, December 13th. Snowmaking weather this week has been less than ideal and we haven't been able to make the snow needed for the type of quality rail set-up we like at Crabbe.
We were hoping to crank up the system overnight last night, but humidity levels overnight stayed above 90% and temps didn't hit the levels we needed giving us a less than ideal "wet bulb temperature". See below for some interesting info on "wet bulb temperature" and snowmaking. To give you the inside scoop, snowmaking requires below freezing temps, ideally about -7C or lower and low relative humidity. You can make snow at warmer temps just below zero but with the wrong humidity combination it takes absolutely forever to amount to anything on the ground.
An ideal example of great snowmaking conditions would be those mornings when you are going up the chairlift early season after a night of snowmaking on King's Horn and there are 20 foot piles that weren't there yesterday, the temps were most likely -12C and very low humidity overnight. :) Prime for snowmaking!
Either way our snowmaking crews are ready to rock and will be making snow as soon as possible. Stay tuned - SB
"How Stuff Works" explains "How Snowmakers Work":
So how do snow-makers determine if the conditions are right? It turns out they need a lot more information than they can get from an ordinary thermometer. Standard thermometers measure the dry bulb temperature of the atmosphere; but the most important factor for snow conditions is the wet bulb temperature.
The wet bulb temperature is a function of the dry bulb temperature and the relative humidity, the amount of water vapor in the air. Liquid or solid water cools itself by evaporating some water as water vapor. This releases heat, and so lowers the energy level in the water. When there is more water vapor in the atmosphere, water or snow can't evaporate as much because the air is already saturated with water to a high degree. Consequently, water cools more slowly when the humidity is high, and more quickly when the humidity is low.
For this reason, humidity is a very important factor in determining snow conditions. If the humidity level is low enough, you can actually get snow even when the dry bulb temperature is several degrees above freezing. If the relative humidity is 100 percent, then the wet bulb temperature and the dry bulb temperature will be exactly the same. But even if both are at the freezing temperature, you might get rain instead of snow because the air saturation slows the cooling process down so much.
If the temperature is around 30 F (-1 C), you need a fairly low relative humidity (less than 30 percent) for good snow-making conditions. If the temperature is less than 20 F (-6.7 C), you can make snow fairly easily even if the relative humidity is 100 percent. A temperature in the teens is ideal for snow-making.
The wet bulb temperature is a function of the dry bulb temperature and the relative humidity, the amount of water vapor in the air. Liquid or solid water cools itself by evaporating some water as water vapor. This releases heat, and so lowers the energy level in the water. When there is more water vapor in the atmosphere, water or snow can't evaporate as much because the air is already saturated with water to a high degree. Consequently, water cools more slowly when the humidity is high, and more quickly when the humidity is low.
For this reason, humidity is a very important factor in determining snow conditions. If the humidity level is low enough, you can actually get snow even when the dry bulb temperature is several degrees above freezing. If the relative humidity is 100 percent, then the wet bulb temperature and the dry bulb temperature will be exactly the same. But even if both are at the freezing temperature, you might get rain instead of snow because the air saturation slows the cooling process down so much.
If the temperature is around 30 F (-1 C), you need a fairly low relative humidity (less than 30 percent) for good snow-making conditions. If the temperature is less than 20 F (-6.7 C), you can make snow fairly easily even if the relative humidity is 100 percent. A temperature in the teens is ideal for snow-making.
