The effect of climate change is an increasing challenge for winter sports, as temperatures rise and viable venues reduce. Sochi in 2014 was the first Winter Olympic Games held in a subtropical climate, and not a single flake of natural snow was expected in Beijing in 2022. So who do host cities turn to when Mother Nature has other ideas?

In this episode, Alexis James meets the professional snowmakers to find out about the science of snowmaking, the effects of climate change on the Winter Olympics, and how one Olympic host even resorted to Shamanism to ensure the Games could begin.

You’ll hear from the people whose task it is to produce snow in all seasons. To whom ‘sun’s out, guns out’ means a completely different thing to the rest of us.

They include Canadian meteorologist Chris Doyle, Olympic stalwarts SMI Snowmakers of Michigan, and the beguiling Mikko Martikainen of Finland.

These amazing folk are the Snow Whisperers. And without them, many winter sports events simply couldn’t happen.