The start of the winter season has been dry, but officials from Northstar Ski Resort say they plan to open Friday morning for the start of the season, right on schedule.
That's because they've been creating snow since October 29, a week earlier than last year.
Basically they mix air and water and shoot it out of a snow gun, but only when it's cold enough for the snow made to stick around.
"We cool everything down, force it through these little nozzles, shoot it up into the air," Senior Director for Mountain Operations at Northstar Julie Rust says. "And basically what we're doing is creating a little snow storm."
They have crews ready around the clock and they're working all the time, except for certain times during the day it gets too warm. The colder it is, the more snow they can make.
"We have about 500 guns across the hill," Rust says. "Some of them are fixed, some of them are portable, but a good night would be about 125 guns."
They can't cover the entire resort for opening day, so they have to focus on certain areas. That means the first place to make snow is where the skiers are, near the gondola.
"We want to create snow in the middle of the mountain first," Rust says. "That's a pretty high priority. And then what we take into account is where our cold temperatures are. Are the cold temperatures up high? Then we can actually stretch up the mountain. Sometimes it's colder in the valley so we can make snow down here [at Northstar village.]"
Temperature is the big x-factor when creating snow, but humidity can play a factor in improving conditions.
"So if it's 34 degrees and low humidity that actually creates a temperature called a wet bulb temperature which is about 28 degrees," Rust says.
While the season starts in less than 36 hours, it's not yet clear which runs will be open.
"It's really yet to be determined," Rust says. "Like I said we're going to take advantage of every second until we get to game time on Friday morning, and we'll see what we have."
