Wannabe meteorologists needed

i know that it has to be atleast -8 celcius to make snow which is 17.6 degrees fahrenheit and i believe but im not too sure that it cant be below -22 celsius (-7.6)

you know how snow is made right??

i though certain snowmakers could make snow above freezing point

yeah... it just has to be below freezing. 32F or 0 C. although they won't make snow until it is consistently below 32, or low night temperatures around low twenties, otherwise there would be only a short time frame in the night that they could make snow.

source: park crew manager last year.

All of the information in this thread so far is false.

The temperature to make snow simply has to be below a wet bulb temperature of 32F or 0C. The wet bulb temperature takes into account humidity and dew point.

Looking at that forecast, I would venture to say that a December 10 opening would be unlikely. I don't really know the dynamics of the East Coast too well, but anything above 50 is way too warm for snowmaking, and with the few days of below freezing wet bulb temperatures that remain in the forecast before the 10th, there won't be enough time to get enough snow made. Or so it appears to an amateur from the West Coast.

Temperature is really only HALF of the story. Humidity also plays a major role.

Here's some stuff that might help, Jack Frost/Big Boulder goes into a bit of detail in snowmaking. http://www.jfbb.com/explore/snowmaking

Also, refer to this chart, anything below the "curve" is prime for snowmaking.



That being said, it's possible they could start making snow Wednesday night, but Thursday night looks a bit better (so they'll probably wait to turn the guns on), then they'd have to turn them off Friday during the day, and they could possibly make snow Saturday, Sunday, and Monday all day it looks like. So, it's unlikely they would open on the 10th, the 11th is possible depending on how much they can cover, but I'd say Tuesday or later is the best bet.