Nuke plant cooling towers + really cold air made a band of snow 2 miles wide and 20 miles long.
This made a mess of traffic yesterday. Not shown in the radar is the interstate exiting to Pittsburgh's northern suburbs.
http://www.weatherworksinc.com/nuclear-snow-pittsburgh
Man-made snow is common in areas with ski resorts as fresh powder always makes for a nice day at the slopes. Typically, man-made snow is produced with snowmaking ‘guns’ that often use a combination of water and compressed air along with powerful fans to launch the freshly made snow. In Pittsburgh, man-made snow came from a different source this past Tuesday, January 22nd. In this instance, cooling towers from the Beaver Valley Nuclear Station (pictured above courtesy of Google Earth) released warm, moist steam into the atmosphere. That moisture, combined with temperatures in the single digits, provided conditions ripe for snow production downwind of the smoke stacks. Sustained winds of 13-15 mph with gusts 20-25 mph allowed this roughly 2 mile wide plume of snow to extend over 20 miles downwind, resulting in a skinny 1”+ swath of snow. Don’t worry, the steam is purely water vapor and includes no radioactive elements. Not your everyday man-made snow! The picture below shows the location of the nuclear station along with the snow band extending more than 20 miles downstream.
This made a mess of traffic yesterday. Not shown in the radar is the interstate exiting to Pittsburgh's northern suburbs.
http://www.weatherworksinc.com/nuclear-snow-pittsburgh
Man-made snow is common in areas with ski resorts as fresh powder always makes for a nice day at the slopes. Typically, man-made snow is produced with snowmaking ‘guns’ that often use a combination of water and compressed air along with powerful fans to launch the freshly made snow. In Pittsburgh, man-made snow came from a different source this past Tuesday, January 22nd. In this instance, cooling towers from the Beaver Valley Nuclear Station (pictured above courtesy of Google Earth) released warm, moist steam into the atmosphere. That moisture, combined with temperatures in the single digits, provided conditions ripe for snow production downwind of the smoke stacks. Sustained winds of 13-15 mph with gusts 20-25 mph allowed this roughly 2 mile wide plume of snow to extend over 20 miles downwind, resulting in a skinny 1”+ swath of snow. Don’t worry, the steam is purely water vapor and includes no radioactive elements. Not your everyday man-made snow! The picture below shows the location of the nuclear station along with the snow band extending more than 20 miles downstream.