Artificial snow is spray of small water crystals, unlike natural snow which forms soft snow flakes. It is mainly used to supplement naturally occurring snow. The device or equipment used to produce artificial snow is called a snow cannon (also called snow gun, snow maker, snow fan or, for certain models, Russian missiles).

Artificial snow is produced by spraying mist of water with high pressure into the surrounding cold atmosphere. As it exits the mouth of the machine, the mist crystallizes and turns into tiny snow like ice particles. The quality of snow produced (how close it resembles to natural snow) depends on the specifications of the equipment used. Although snow sports enthusiasts prefer natural snow over artificial one (no matter how real it gets, you can always feel the water crystals and thus the friction)

One of the earliest, compressed-air snow making devices (similar to the one described above) used at a resort was introduced during 1950s. Later during 1970s, a number of innovations were introduced to improve the quantity and quality of snow. At that time, these machines were basically used to extend the skiing seasons at resorts and not many resorts used them. Over the time, machine-made snow has been substantially refined by the ski industry due to increase in the usage of artificially produced snow. Now days, the use of snow canons is becoming a common practise at ski hills and snow resorts, primarily due to global warming.

Global warming refers to the steady rise in the average temperature of the Earth. Due to this rising temperature snow in the elevated areas is starting to melt earlier than it used to. A number of resorts are facing ruins because of the vanishing snow due to which they are forced to use alternative methods of producing snow. Although, apparently, snow canons solve the problem facing resort businesses, they have a bigger, less apparent influence on the environment. Snow cannon consume large amount of water and power which itself adds a big share to global warming and water shortage. Annually, Europe's 3100 snow cannons alone use as much energy as a city of 150,000 inhabitants and about the same amount of water as 1.5 million people in a city like Hamburg.

Under these circumstances, the need of environment friendly snow making process is more than ever. Luckily, major snow making industries and resorts understand the damage being done to the environment. They are trying to minimize it by using clean fuel and building more efficient and environment friendly equipment to help reduce strain on the environment.

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