Watching this year’s Beijing Winter Olympics, you’ll get occasional glimpses of the snowless landscape surrounding the venues, with machine-made snow churned out to blanket the slopes and trails for the athletes. The first Olympics ever to use this weather surrogate were the Lake Placid Games of 1980, amid a fabled snow drought in an otherwise snowy locale.
Since then, snowmaking has been used as needed to improve conditions for other Games, including in 2014 and 2018. And, of course, it has been requisite for this year’s dry, cold winter in Beijing.
Flash back 42 years. The Adirondacks, which often boast knee-deep powder, were instead devoid of any snow and as brown as a post-peak autumn day. Any decent chill in the air was mostly lacking in the month leading up to the 1980 Games.
Aerial shots on local TV newscasts before the Feb. 13-24 Olympics starkly revealed the problem, and the forecasts offered little promise that a well-timed snowstorm would bring a storybook metamorphosis for the Opening Ceremonies. Day after January day, those pictures on the news made clear that the weather is rarely perfectly timed, even for this grandest of sports stages.
Of course, natural snow would be expected in the heart of the northern Adirondacks, where average seasonal totals range from about 100 inches at Lake Placid to 150 inches-plus on nearby Whiteface Mountain. But the drought from December through mid-February was relentless. The period was described, in the final report from the Lake Placid Olympic Organizing Committee, as “the worst snow drought to hit the eastern United States since 1887.”
There was essentially no snow on the ground except on mountain peaks during January, and what little did fall (a couple of inches at most) was prone to melt quickly with temperatures frequently ranging above average until the final few days of the month. The warmest period occurred during the second week of January, with readings soaring into the high 40s and mid-50s.
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The weather, a primary concern for every Olympics, thus presented the meteorologists assembled for the Games with a unique challenge. The team, as described in a National Weather Service Heritage piece, included meteorologists from the National Weather Service plus one from the state of New York and a student intern. Not only did they have to monitor the meteorology that could impact the athletes and their well-being during the Games (frostbite, wind, etc.) but they also had to provide support for the broader weather issues that developed in the weeks prior.
Their exhaustive work was detailed in a story by Rick Karlin in the Times Union, a newspaper in Albany, N.Y.: “Meteorologists made their mark at Lake Placid Olympics.” It is recognized and documented in a special exhibit at the Lake Placid Olympic Museum.
As for that lack of snow, our mechanisms of technology did ultimately deliver. According to a website about Whiteface Mountain, “the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation approved the design and installation of a $5 million snow-making system at Whiteface in 1979.” Ahead of the Games, organizers had “promised the first ‘weatherproof’ Olympics,” The Washington Post reported on Jan. 15, 1980.
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Tony Goodwin, who was the venue manager for the Lake Placid Olympic Organizing Committee, shared pictures of crews spreading snow on cross-country trails in the Facebook group “History and Legends of the Adirondacks.”
“The snow guns were cranked up to produce a huge mount of snow that ended up looking like a mushroom after the loaders had dug into it,” he wrote. “After that, it was spread on the trails one dump truck load at a time. The snow often came off in big chunks, so many passes with the groomer with a plow were needed to smooth the snow into something skiable.”
But even after the snow was made, it was unclear whether it would survive, given the mild weather pattern. Thankfully, conditions turned plenty cold enough just in time for the Games, maintaining the manufactured base of snow that had been expertly layered and groomed.
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There was even a fresh coating of natural snow a few days into the event, but, of course, there had to be one more glitch. On Feb. 20, the thaw returned, with temperatures rising once again to levels seen in January — back to near 50 degrees! The warm-up didn’t linger long, so there was little danger to the surviving snow and ice for the remaining four days of the Games.
So now, 42 years later, as we enjoy the 2022 Olympics, remember the groundbreaking initiative at Lake Placid, where machines rescued us from the scarcity of falling snow. The practice, established by necessity then, is routine now. But it will never replace the warmth delivered, even on the most frigid of days, by sweeping views of snow-covered mountains as we watch the Winter Games from afar.
Jim Duncan recently retired from his 40-year career as chief meteorologist with NBC12 WWBT-TV in Richmond. He runs his own meteorological consulting firm, Jim Duncan, LLC, serving clients in media, education and other industries.
Jason Samenow contributed to this report.
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