2025 has brought exciting new features and innovations from the team at OpenSnow.
Our number one goal is to improve the accuracy of our forecasts and expand the capabilities of our existing and new features using the latest innovations in machine learning.
What AI means for your OpenSnow forecasts
- More time to prepare for severe weather.
- More accurate mountain weather forecasts.
- Fewer surprises when you're playing outside, no matter the season.
StormNet
In September 2025, we introduced StormNet, an AI-powered severe weather model that produces real-time, high-resolution forecasts for lightning, hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes.
StormNet was built to help you make real-time decisions to seek safety if lightning or severe weather is heading in your direction. This is particularly useful when hiking, driving, and participating in most outdoor events.
View → OpenSnow.com/stormnet
PEAKS
We are also in the final stages of implementing PEAKS, an AI-powered weather model that produces forecasts up to 50% more accurate in complex, mountain terrain.
Alta, Utah, is one of the snowiest locations in the United States.
Typical weather models underpredict the snowfall at Alta (grey line), while the PEAKS model (orange line) closely aligns with the precipitation that Alta receives (black line).
PEAKS learns from past storms and transforms normal weather models (used by other apps) into sharper, more location-specific forecasts. Learning from past storms is what human meteorologists do, but unlike humans, PEAKS can forecast for every location on earth with updates taking only seconds.
This map compares a normal weather model and our PEAKS weather model using a precipitation forecast in northern Utah. Higher amounts of precipitation are shown as orange colors.
The normal weather model is "blob-y" and smooth as it does NOT understand the location of each mountain peak and valley bottom.
The PEAKS weather model transforms this "blob-y" forecast into a higher-resolution forecast that accurately predicts areas of higher precipitation along favored mountains, and areas of lower precipitation in sheltered valleys.
View → OpenSnow.com
PEAKS + StormNet
Combined, PEAKS + StormNet provide a first-of-its-kind, fully operational multi-component AI forecast system that we are aware of in the weather industry.
Meteorology is a complex science, and there will always be a need for human experts to evaluate and add context to weather models and forecasts, especially as that applies to skiing, outdoor recreation, safety, and many other things.
AI will NOT replace human forecasters at OpenSnow
Some of the AI tools we are adding are meant to complement, not replace humans. Our audience values the local “voice” that our forecasters provide and that cannot be replicated by a computer. We understand that our human-powered Daily Snows are one of the most popular features of our service.
The human forecasters at OpenSnow can’t cover all places at all times, so we created AI-written predictions (powered by PEAKS) to provide an in-depth summary of what skiers or riders will likely experience on the mountain.
The main benefit of AI in our industry is that it is leading to improvement in weather modeling. This will lead to significant improvement in snow and weather forecasts in complex mountain terrain, which is a benefit to all of us.
We understand there are social concerns and drawbacks to AI at a larger scale, but we feel that as a company, OpenSnow is implementing AI in a responsible manner where the pros will far outweigh the cons from an improvement in forecast accuracy and safety for all outdoor activities.
Environmental Concerns
Yes, there are also environmental concerns from training and fully implementing AI features, but anything we do will always require more power and energy:
- Another server for more weather data? More power.
- Improving mountain weather forecasts? More power.
- Faster and more reliable app and website? More power.
Hundreds of millions of skiers and snowboarders around the world are driving and flying to enjoy perishable snow conditions, so we think that using AI in a limited capacity as a small company is only a minor part of the footprint.
That's also why we partner with Stripe to send 1% of our subscription sales to innovative projects that directly remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and ensure its sequestration in secure, long-term storage.
As of October 2025, we have sent over $60,000 to Stripe Climate.