22/12/2017

Nick Miller and Sarah Keith-Lucas look at how 'fake weather' is made for TV programmes and movies and Matt Taylor investigates space weather and what impact it had on Earth.

The Weather World team visits the world's leading manufacturer of fake snow, which creates wintry scenes for the the film and television industry.

For more than 35 years Snow Business in Gloucestershire has been providing the "white stuff" to films such as Star Wars, James Bond and Harry Potter. And it all came about by absolute chance, when the company's owner Darcey Crownshaw, who was working for a paper manufacturer at the time, came up with the idea of making bio-degradable fake snow from paper.

The company also makes real snow, which as well as film and TV, is also used in ski shows and for testing in the automotive industry.

Nick and Sarah discover how everything is made and how the company is constantly striving to make its processes more environmentally friendly.

Meanwhile, Matt Taylor explores the science behind space weather. Strictly speaking, it's not meteorology but solar flares and coronal mass ejections from the sun have the potential to impact the way we all live our everyday lives.