Plan: Base & Premium
Optimize your schedule and plan trips around the best snow with the Powder Quality forecast.
See historical powder quality for the past 15 days and what's in-store for the next 15 days.
Powder Quality Rating
- Orange = Excellent
- Blue = Good
- Grey = Okay
Timing
There are three Powder Quality "bars" per day:
- 1st bar = first chair through morning
- 2nd bar = midday
- 3rd bar = afternoon to last chair
Getting Started
- Go to any ski resort screen.
- Tap the "Snow Summary" tab.
- Scroll down under "Powder Quality".
Powder Quality vs Snow Quality
This is a Powder Quality score and not a Snow Quality score.
While many types of snow are fun to ride (grippable groomers, chalky conditions, spring corn snow, etc), this score is focused on Powder.
Riding deep, fluffy powder is the goal for many skiers and riders, and it is also a hard-to-forecast and perishable condition. This is why we focused this score on powder.
Why did we create a Powder Quality score?
We created the Powder Quality score to make it easier to understand when to find the best powder.
All of the ingredients to the Powder Quality score were already presented on OpenSnow.
But it can be a chore to look through these variables to form your own concept of the Powder Quality:
- Forecast snow totals
- Overnight vs daytime snowfall
- SLR (snow-to-liquid ratio)
- Wind speeds
- Temperatures
- Recent snowfall
- Recent weather conditions
To make finding powder less of a chore, we combined these ingredients into a single Powder Quality score.
What exactly does Excellent, Good, and Okay mean?
These are not exact categories because everyone has a different definition of their perfect day.
In general terms, we think that these conditions should be met for the best Powder Quality:
- A soft base (healthy recent snowfall and cold temperatures)
- Deep new snow (10+ inches during the previous night or current day)
- Fluffy snow quality (cold temperatures, light/moderate winds)
Why does the Powder Quality score not always align with the amount of snow?
The timing of the best Powder Quality often will align with the days of the forecast deepest snow, but this is not always the case.
- If there has been little or no recent snowfall, it takes time for new snow to soften base, so the best Powder Quality could be displaced later, after the earlier snow has softened the base.
- If the first part of a start is warm and/or has mixed precipitation or rain, this could delay the onset of the best Powder Quality.
- If the snow quality becomes thick/wet/dense, this could decrease the Powder Quality even if total new snow amounts are high.
- If there has been snow for multiple days, and the snow stops but the weather remains cold with light winds, Powder Quality could continue to be Good or Excellent for a while after the last snowflake falls.
What if I do not want to see the Powder Quality score?
If you do not want to see the Powder Quality score and instead want to keep your Snow Summary screen less busy, simply tap the "up chevron" and the Powder Quality section will collapse.
Your choice will be remembered on future Snow Summary screens.
You can tap the "down chevron" to display the Powder Quality section in the future.
The Powder Quality score is a guide, not an aboslute!
The most fun part about searching for and riding powder is that it's not a perfect science.
There are always challenges.
There are always surprises.
Go out and explore.
You may find that our Powder Quality score is spot on, and you may find it to be incorrect.
We'd love to know about both situations, so please email us the details.
And most of all, we hope that the Powder Quality score helps guide you to make the most of your time in the snow, and also that you find some upside surprises in the mountains:-)
Questions?
Send an email to hello@opensnow.com — a real human will get back to you within 24 hours.