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From fake snow, real retail magic?

In usually snow-free Florida, shopping venues hope pretend snowfalls will lure in shoppers who dream of winter weather.

The latest marketing craze for Florida malls and shopping venues to draw in shoppers during the holiday season? Promise them falling snow.

Because there's no business like snow business.

Starting today and continuing through the holidays, both Channelside and International Plaza/Bay Street in Tampa plan to offer visitors "snow falling nightly" near their holiday displays to get warm-blooded Floridians in the gift-giving spirit.

A spokeswomen for International Plaza would say only that the snow is "magic."

"It is magic," insisted Susan Martin, marketing director for Channelside, the shopping and entertainment complex near downtown Tampa. A few minutes later, however, Martin revealed that a solution of water and Mr. Bubble bubble bath is fed into snow machines. What comes out, she said, is a foamy substance that is not cold and can't be packed into balls, but looks like snow.

"Couldn't you just leave it at magic?" Martin asked.

It would be easy, she said, to dismiss fake snow as simply a marketing ploy to attract shoppers. But this is about kids catching snowflakes, she said, and parents remembering sleds and snow angels.

And it has to be this way. Real snow doesn't happen here.

Or does it?

The most recent trace of snow occurred on Dec. 23, 1989, when there was a low of 28 degrees. But for total accumulation, it's hard to top what happened during the third week of January 1977. A trace of snow dusted the Tampa Bay area on Jan. 18, when the temperature dropped to 29. There were snow flurries as far south as Miami and the Bahamas. It even snowed in Frostproof.

The next day, when the temperature dropped another 2 degrees, the region received from two-tenths to more than an inch of snow.

And a generous supply of pandemonium.

Schools closed to conserve electricity, stores ran out of sweaters, chickens laid fewer eggs, criminals committed fewer crimes, and fish numbed by cold water floated to the surface of the Gulf of Mexico and bayous where they were (illegally) scooped up by hand.

Tampa had some of the worst traffic problems in the state with ice on the overpasses of Interstates 4, 75 and 275.

But the children came through. They had to scrape together every snowflake in the yard, but there they were. Snowmen. Vertically challenged, yes. But snowmen.

It could happen again, even somewhere other than a mall.

"But in most situations here, when a cold front comes in, there's no moisture," said John McMichael, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Ruskin. "It can certainly can get cold enough here to snow. But if you don't have moisture, you don't have snow."

The outlook for this winter, McMichael said, is for slightly below-normal temperatures and slightly above-normal precipitation.

Dare we mention the "s" word?

McMichael thought for a moment. He grew up in Massachusetts, and like millions of others, moved to Florida to avoid snow. "I remember the blizzard of '78," he said. "We had 54 inches of snow in one day. Sixty mph winds. Couldn't see a thing.

"But I've always liked watching snow at night coming down. That's pretty cool. I'd like to see some snow flurries again."

He put the chances at less than 1 percent.

"But," he said, "there's always hope."

Times researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report.

"Magic of Snow" at International Plaza and Bay Street, 2223 N West Shore Blvd., Tampa. Monday through Thursday at 7 p.m., Sunday at 6 p.m, Friday and Saturday at 7 and 9 p.m.

Channelside snow display, Channelside Drive, Tampa. Shows daily at 6, 7, 8 and 9 p.m.