POWHATAN, Va. – The weather in Powhatan has been relatively mild this December, and historical records show that there is only a 7% chance of a white Christmas on any given year.
However, there is never a Christmas without snow for Jamie Carter, a resident of Powhatan.
Carter told NBC 12 that he has loved snow ever since he grew up with the blizzard of ‘83, and now he makes his own snow whenever he wants it with a snow-making unit.
“Basically, I have one unit; it’s a 20-year unit. It’s called the Backyard Blizzard; the other ones are called Snow at Home. It’s basically the motors, and all the setup is all run underground out to here. Then it’s just putting it all together when it gets cold and setting it up,” Carter said.
Carter has been using this system for the past couple of decades and normally has snow on the ground from December to March.
“It’s air compressed, and basically, a power washer all combined to make the snow by just nucleating the nozzle into a high-pressure water spray and fine particles and just freezes it,” Carter said.
Jamie Carter also stated an important part of the process is paying attention to the temperature and dewpoint during the winter months.
“It takes about 26 degrees and good low dewpoints to really make a good deep snow. When you get down to 0 degrees, I mean, I can blow eight, 9-feet of snow in one night,” Carter said.
Thanks to this process, Carter and his family enjoy snow all winter long, and sometimes even until April.