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Good morning everybody. It is Wednesday, December 17th, and this is day five of the 12 days of Christmas. Parents, today's episode is only about nine minutes long. Plan accordingly. I'm Mimi Fotz, and this is Hello from the Van. Alright, now before we begin, I'm going to play a little clip. You uh see if you can guess what today's topic is.

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Snow, snow, snow, snow, snow. It won't be long before we'll all be there with snow.

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Did you guess snow? Well, you're right. We are going to talk about snow today. Because frankly, I haven't seen any in quite some time, and I'd like to talk about it. For those of you who don't know, I am a Utah native. I grew up in a state where our slogan was the greatest snow on earth. But alas, we have not had any snow this year, really. And this lack of snow has snow on my mind. We need to go back just a little bit and talk about what is normal for snow in Utah. What's a regular year look like? An average year of snowfall in Utah is about 500 to 550 inches. I'm not gonna make you do the math. That's about 41 to 46 feet of snow annually. So over the whole course of the winter, we get about 45, 46 feet of snow in the mountains. That sounds great and all, right? That's an average year. However, just a couple years ago in 2022, we had the highest level of snow that we've ever had on record. So as long as Utah has been keeping track of our snow, the highest year was actually just a couple years ago in 2022. We got over 900 inches. That's almost double our annual average. It was amazing. Now, if you're wondering what this year, what 2025 looks like in comparison to 2022, this is actually one of the worst years for snow in Utah that we've ever had. I looked it up. It's actually second to last. That's right. Over the last 50 years, 2025 is off to almost the worst start we've ever had, only surpassed by 2018, which is the worst on record. So here's hoping that we get some snowpack before Christmas. Fingers crossed. But in the meantime, let's learn about artificial snow and imitation snow. The first kind we're going to talk about is imitation snow. Imitation snow is sometimes called snowmaking, and it's used on ski resorts, and it's as close to natural snow as we can get. Here's how it works: snow making is mainly used at ski resorts to supplement natural snow. So, for example, here in Utah, we don't have nearly enough snow that we need for our ski resorts to open. A lot of the ski resorts start in November with their snow making machines. They sometimes call it snow grooming. Basically, it's like a toupee for a mountain, but out of snow. They take fake snow and they blow it out on all the grass, and then they use another machine and they take it over the top and they make it look flat and nice and beautiful. Ski resorts use what's called a snow cannon. It's a big machine that uses compressed air and water, and it sprays it through this specialized nozzle at the end when temperatures are cold. And it creates a real snow, but it's more dense than actual snow because it's not snowflakes, it's actually very tiny water droplets. So if you've ever looked at like a snowflake on your finger and you can like see the actual snowflake and it's nice and fluffy looking, you know, and it's really pretty. This is different. This is a like a tiny little droplet. Imagine like tiny little bits of hail almost, but even smaller. So, in order for a snow cannon to work, you have to have four things. The first is it has to be cold. The second, you need water, of course. The third, you need air, normally compressed air. The fourth thing you need is a fan. The fan acts like a mini blizzard and it just goes whoosh and pushes all of that water and compressed air together to act like a fake snowstorm. But what about cost? Well, I looked that up too. Apparently, it can cost about a million dollars for a snowmaking system, and then the electricity, because it takes a lot of electricity and a lot of water, the electricity alone can cost about $10,000 a day and can jump up to $100,000 per day during peak snowmaking seasons. And if you're like me, you had no idea that snow making was such a big business. This brings us to our other type of snow, also known as artificial snow. Artificial snow is anything that looks kind of like snow, but isn't made from crystallized water. There are a lot of different types of artificial snow. We're first going to start with fake snow used in film and theater. Okay, take a guess. If you had to guess what they used to use for fake snow, like in the old time movies, what do you think they used? Go ahead and take a guess. Did you guess dried potato flakes? Yeah, me neither. But apparently that's one of the things that they used. Dry potato flakes. They used that. They used soap flakes, they've used breakfast cereal before, cotton, paper, feathers, and even asbestos. One of the main and most reliable materials that was used for fake snow was actually bleached cornflakes, you know, like the breakfast cereal. The problem was it was kind of loud when the actors walked on it. And this would mean that they would record the scene and then the actors would have to go into studio with a microphone and re-record their lines because the snow sounded loud. It sounded like you were stepping on bugs or cereal because that's what it was. It sounded really bad. As sound for movies got better, the need for quieter fake snow became essential. And there are two big movies that changed the way that snow was used. The first was The Wizard of Oz. Cornflakes could not work in the poppy scene. So what they ended up using was asbestos. It was not healthy. It made a lot of people very sick. The other movie was It's a Wonderful Life. Now, in that movie, they actually tried the cornflake method first and it was too loud. It just would not work because the scenes that they needed snow for were so emotionally charged, they didn't want to have to re-record them. They needed them to be authentic. So what they ended up using was a new invention called foamite or just fire extinguisher foam. It's just a fancy name for fire extinguisher foam. So they ended up using that. So if you watch It's a Wonderful Life and you get to the bridge scene, you'll be able to see puddles around the feet of the actors. And this is actually just puddles of fire extinguisher foam. It's not snow, it's not anything. It's just fire extinguisher foam. Who knew? If you're wondering what we use today, well, there's full companies for that. That's right. There are companies that their only job is to create fake snow for movies and television sets. The biggest company in the world for making fake snow is actually a company out of California called Snow Business. That's right. They have over 40 years' experience. They use over 140 different types of snow. They work on major films like the Harry Potter series and television shows like The Office. So to answer the question, what do we use for fake snow today? Well, it's a lot of different things. We've come a long way from asbestos and cornflakes, that's for sure. The last type of snow we're going to talk about is domestic snow. Domestic is just a fancy way of saying around the house. Some people buy spray foam from a can that looks like snow. Some people make their own snow from baking soda, and other people just use cotton to represent snow. Might I suggest the cotton at your house? It's the easiest to clean up, which makes it snow problem. Here's a couple jokes to uh round out our podcast. How does a snowman get around town by icicle? Okay, next one. Why did the girl keep her saxophone outside in the snow? Because she wanted to play cool jazz.

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Okay, okay, I know they're bad.

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Last one, here we go. What kind of money do snowmen use? Cold hard cash.

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And with that, it's the end of our podcast. Everybody have a good day. We'll see you tomorrow. I'm Mimi Potts, and this has been Hello from the Van.

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If you're still here, let's cite those sources. Today's sources are the Utah Snow Report, Snowbusiness.com, On Stage by Vicky Cobb, Mother Nature Network, Six Things You Probably Didn't Know About It's a Wonderful Life by Matt Hickman, Making Snow from About.com, Snow Making Companies in a Warming World by The Economist, and From Cotton to Cornflakes and Even Asbestos by David Reimer Alaska.