OK.
I am a member of the group of NFL fans who believes that tomorrow's Super Bowl has absolutely no business being played in New York... or New Jersey.... you get my point.
This is the single-most important NFL game of the season.
In fact, it quite possibly is the biggest single game of any sport all year.
And someone chooses to hold it in NY/NJ. On February 2nd. When there could be all sorts of snow, wind, freezing temps, etc.
The game belongs in a warm climate (FL, AZ, CA, HI) or in a domed stadium (Indy, NO, Dallas).
Weather conditions should not impact the event.
Which brings me to the real conversation topic of this post.....
The Olympic Games are being held in Sochi, located on the Black Sea in Southwest Russia, which is a very odd place to play host to the WINTER Games.
Sochi is regarded as a summer resort area with a humid, subtropical climate. Per Wikipedia, "In the coldest months — January and February — the average temperature is about 10 °C (50 °F) during the day, above 3 °C (37 °F) at night and the average sea temperature is about 9 °C (48 °F)."
Average of 50 degrees? That's warm! And they are hosting winter events?
Granted, most of the outdoor stuff (skiing, snowboarding, biathlon, bobsled, etc.) is being held up in the mountains, quite a distance from Sochi.
But still.
It makes no sense. Just like the Super Bowl being held in NY/NJ.
In fact, the Russians seem to know they could quite possibly have a problem.
They have been stockpiling snow!!
Yup!
"Afraid the weather would not cooperate, at the end of last season organizers created several large piles of snow and covered them with special insulated blankets. The hope was that enough snow would last the summer to use during the Olympics."
"Eight vaults have been storing snow for over a year under special blankets made from isothermal fabric to keep it from defrosting."
"Some 500,000 cubic meters of snow, or enough to fill about 200 Olympic sized swimming pools, survived the summer. That is enough, he said, to act as a backup in case the massive snowmaking machines fail or if it is too warm to make snow."
Crazy, huh? Stockpiling snow.
(Side note: I've read that during the Vancouver Olympics some years back, they had to airlift snow to the slopes.)
And, those creative Russians have other tricks up their sleeves as well to ensure there's plenty of snow in a place and during a time when snow isn't very plentiful:
** There are hundreds of snow cannons scattered around the slopes. They use water from the mountain lakes to make artificial snow.
** A special kind of snow salt is being used as a kind of glue for when and if the snow melts.
** Mountain gutters gather snow falling at the highest peaks and transport it down to the slopes.
To me, it's gotta be a real engineering feat (a very expensive one) to make the quantity and quality of snow that the world-class Olympic athletes deserve.
Manufacturing new snow.... tough enough.
Keeping last year's snow in storage.... wow. simply wow.
Think about that.
Out for now......
Matt
Read more about snow storage: