This page is to help you better understand snowmaking and grooming.
An Areco Fangun much like the kind you may find at Big Squaw mountain.
Snowmaking.
What is it and how does snowmaking system work ?
Machine made snow is basically small particles of ice.
Water.
Most important is of course water. This can be a problem for ski areas as they are normally where the source of the water begins, on top of the mountains. With ponds or dams, the problem can be solved by building up a good storage supply.
Most requirements for snowmaking require relative large quantities of water. For example to cover an area of 500 meters (1 650 feet) by 60 meters (200 feet) with 20 centimeters (8 inches) of snow, we need 6 000 cubic meters (210 000 cubic feet) of snow or 2 500 cubic meters (658 000 gallons) of water.
Then you need a network of pipes throughout the resort to distribute the water. On the pipes there are watervalves where to connect the snow machines producing the snow. A high pressure water pump is needed to push the water through the pipes.
Cold temperature and humidity.
What you see on a thermometer is called dry bulb temperature. Ambient air temperature. In terms of physics, there's no such thing as "cold." There is only heat, more heat, and less heat. The lower the humidity, the more snow a snow machine can make at a given temperature.
This is how the humidity works: On a 90 degree day with 40 % relative humidity, you feel much cooler than you do on an 85 degree day with 95 % relative humidity. The reason for this because your body gives off heat more easily through radiational cooling when the air isn't saturated with moisture.
A droplet of water from snow machine gives off heat more readily when it is low humidity out than it does when it is high humidity.
Combination of dry bulb temperature and relative humidity is called the wet bulb temperature. When the air is saturated (100 percent relative humidity), the dry bulb and wet bulb temperatures are identical. But when the air is drier than 100 percent, the wet bulb temperature will be lower than the dry bulb.
Areco machine made snow.
Compared to natural snow, Areco snow has great resistance to rain and warm weather. Because of the structure of very special spherical ice crystals, rain drains through it without surface ice.
Click to see a full sized image
Big Squaw Mountain has 4 Areco fanguns, and 1 Hedco fangun. They are very efficient and produce a consistant quality snow, but like anything they have there good and bad points. The bad points being that they are expensive to buy and hard to move, for example the average fangun costs around 14,000. And they can only be moved with a snowcat or a snowmobile. The good points are thet they are cheaper to run opposed to an Air water system, and it is easier to install a fangun system because you don't need to install air-compressors or air pipes, because the comppressor is built on to the gun on fanguns.
I hope this helps you get a better understanding of Snowmaking systems and how they work.
Here are a couple pics of Hedco snowguns in action.
Here is a list of trails that have Snowmaking at Big Squaw...
Lower Mountain
Upper Allagash
Rip Gorge
Kennebec
Fitzgerald
Mid-Station
Lower Piscataquis
Lower Moose River
Upper Mountain
Penobscot
Moose River
Piscataquis
