Mother Nature has been a fickle manager of snowfall lately, sending an avalanche of powder to ski resorts across the country two years ago, followed by the least amount of snowfall in decades last winter.
A scattering of storms has already swept through the West this winter, but it's too early to tell if this season will be a snowy success or another dry disappointment.
But ski resort managers are losing less sleep over erratic weather conditions after making a flurry of investments over the last few years in ultra-efficient, computerized snow-making equipment.
Once powered by diesel air compressors and monitored by workers on snowmobiles, today's snow-making systems rely on computers, fiber-optic cables and low-energy fans that can be controlled by smartphone or programmed to automatically make snow when conditions are prime.
The good news for powder hounds is that the frozen spray generated by modern snow-making equipment is so close to real snow that even veteran skiers can't tell the difference.
"If I'm going down a run, I can't tell you if I just skied on natural or man-made snow," said Bruce Lee, a Redondo Beach resident who has been skiing for 30 years in Vermont, Pennsylvania, Utah, Colorado and California. "I'll bet no one can tell the difference."
Video chat: Tahoe ski resorts get a makeover
Investments in snow making have been especially crucial in California, where snowfall has always been particularly unreliable. The state is home to 29 resorts that generate an estimated $1.3 billion in spending a year.
Last year's ultra-dry season only reinforced the value of artificial snow-making systems. The 2011-12 season marked the lowest national average snowfall in 20 years, forcing half of the nation's resorts to either open late or close early.
The National Resources Defense Council estimates that ski resorts lost $1 billion in revenue because of meager snowfall over the last decade.
Resort operators that had already invested heavily -n snow-making equipment said man-made snow helped them avoid a complete bust.
"For us, the reaction to last year was 'Thank God we've done what we did in the past,'" said Pete Sonntag, general manager at Lake Tahoe's Heavenly ski resort, where 155 snow-making machines can cover 65% of the resort's skiable terrain.
Heavenly's snow-making system — the largest on the West Coast — can be controlled from a desktop computer at a pump house on the mountain or a smartphone carried by Barrett Burghard, the resort's senior manager for snow surfaces.
"I'm not going to lie and say we can make snow as good as Mother Nature," Burghard said as he glanced at a computer screen to check the water levels in the resort's storage tanks. "But it's close."
The best man-made snow, he said, is light and can be pressed into a snowball without oozing water.
He has another, very unscientific method for testing his machine-spewed snow: He tosses it against his arm to see how it bounces off his sleeve. "There's an art to making snow," Burghard said.
In the past, snow-making was a labor-intensive task that involved teams of workers taking temperature and humidity readings throughout the night.
If the conditions were right for snow-making, workers would ride snowmobiles up the mountains to switch on snow guns, which were often powered by diesel air compressors and connected to high-pressure air and water hoses bordering ski runs.
But temperatures at different spots on a mountain can vary by several degrees, making it difficult for resort operators to gauge when and where to activate the snow guns.
Modern snow-making guns use less energy than older systems, relying on a combination of portable compressors and energy-efficient fans.
Snow-making at ski resorts goes high tech
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Snow-making at ski resorts goes high tech
