US Ski Resorts Turn to Drones to Make It Snow Amid Dire Drought
States and ski areas are spending millions on cloud seeding this winter to freshen up slopes and protect water supplies, despite the technology’s checkered track record.
A Rainmaker Technology drone launches from a former cattle ranch near Pocatello, Idaho.
Photographer: Nico Abegg-GuzmanDespite a barren start to Colorado’s ski season, Winter Park Resort opened on Halloween and served up holiday powder.
The ski area’s secret is a contraption a few miles upwind of the chairlifts that looks like a meat smoker strapped to the top of a ladder. When weather conditions are just right, a Winter Park contractor fires up the machine, burning a fine dust of silver iodide into the sky — a process known as cloud seeding. Ideally, the particles disappear into a cloud that is cold enough and wet enough to produce snow, but may need a nudge. The silver iodide becomes the nuclei for water droplets, like iron filings to a magnet. Those droplets freeze and fall from the sky as snowflakes, freshening up the slopes of the resort as it tries to lure the Gore-Tex-clad masses between Denver and larger, showier ski destinations further west.