Snow in winter is a fact of life in Wisconsin, but how much white stuff we get and when falls can change drastically from year to year.

If your business relies on snow, that can be a big problem…unless you can make your own snow.

Ski areas across the country, including Granite Peak at Rib Mountain State Park near Wausau, use snow-making machines (often referred to as snow cannons or snow guns) to keep business going when Mother Nature holds out on snow.

So how do they work?

The snow guns spray a stream of water into tiny droplets using compressed air or a large fan.

The tiny water droplets are cooled through evaporation and then become snow crystals.

But the snow guns still rely on Mother Nature.

In order for the snow guns to work, the temperature and humidity have to be right.

Lower humidity levels and cooler temperatures are best.

Low humidity is important because evaporation helps the water mist to cool and become snow crystals; and if it's too humid, the water won't evaporate as much.

At Granite Peak, they consider making snow once the temperature hits about 28 degrees, but temperature readings in the teens are ideal.

Even when the flakes are flying, Granite Peak relies heavily on snow guns.

In a year when central Wisconsin gets average snowfall, about 70% of their snow is still manmade.

"If we lay down a good base of snow early on in the season, that'll carry us through to the end of March," says Stu Kulpinski, who works with the snow guns at Granite Peak.

Man-made snow tends to be denser than natural snow.

"It tends to hold up a little bit better to skier traffic than Mother Nature does," says Kulpinski.

But they'll still take all the snow Mother Nature provides so they can keep skiers schussing down the slopes.

For their opening day, Granite Peak had no help with the snowmaking from nature, so they had to do it all with their machines.

“Generally, in the areas that we’ve opened here, we’ve tried to lay out anywhere from a good foot to three feet of snow,” says Kulpinski.

In order to do that, it took about 70 hours of snowmaking and about 19 million gallons of water!

It takes plenty of teamwork, time, and effort to keep the snow on the slopes.

“We run two 12-hour snowmaking shifts, so we go 7 to 7 and 7 to 7. Each shift has between six to eight guys on it and those guys are out here all night long during the coldest temperatures and they’re a big reason to the success that we have,” says Kulpinski.

"This is a, it's a team effort--it, it starts with, you know, the snowmaking crew, and the grooming crew, um, all the way down to the office people, to the whole group of us to make this all come together."

While that’s a lot of hard work, it’s very much appreciated by those who wait all year long to hit the slopes.