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Live in the West? Coming West? OpenSnow is a Game Changer

HuntersEmma57

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
https://opensnow.com/ There's also a fantastic phone app. This site is an amazing weather and conditions site that covers Western US and Western Canada and Alaska resorts. The graphics are second to none.

A few years ago, they added smoke and wildfire maps for the whole US so it's a site we access daily for 9 months out the year.

Beside the incredible breadth and depth of weather and specific resort info, each state/region has its own forecaster who knows the nuances of their weather and mountains. Learn about orographics!

We track conditions for resorts we're thinking of going to for weeks before a trip. It's especially helpful it you have several resorts relatively close together so you can see who's thriving and who's scritching.

In the summer, we change routes and destinations based on smoke maps and have avoided some pretty awful stuff.

Evan Thayer is the forecaster for Utah and he feels like a family member. You can select "favorites" to quickly access specific resort's snow reports and forecasts.

There's a short free trial and even after that, it's still quite affordable. There's a shareable family membership and we all have it on our phones.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
Have been paying for OpenSnow since it started. Partially because I was following Evan before he realized that joining up with OpenSnow made good sense. Best value ever since I do multiple trips each season to more than one region.

The coverage for the east, both Northeast and Mid-Atlantic/Southeast has improved a lot in recent years. The addition of graphs for snowmaking temps was cool to see for the Midwest when it was added a few years ago. Used to be that I mainly used OpenSnow for trips out west.
 

badger

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I've subscribed to OpenSnow for five years. I would not travel without it!! And as I live near Flagstaff, the local commentary is great. Whenever I am on a trip to a particular resort I count on OpenSnow to help me decide what to wear--- from the Temp predictions --- how windy it'll be, cloud cover, etc.
Great website.
 

Pequenita

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
And Cliff Mass. Back when he'd send out emails to a list serv (although, that could just be my memory making things up about how the info was delivered).
 

RachelV

Administrator
Staff member
I work at OpenSnow, for the record. It's great, and while forecasting weather is hard and it's impossible to be right all the time, I can say that all of our forecasters are lovely dudes (they are all dudes, unfortunately) who care very much about what they're doing and are very open to feedback if there's something wonky about their forecasts. We've tweaked our forecast models in response to users noticing consistent over / underforecasting in the past and we're always working to refine them. I'm not a meteorologist at all (I'm a software engineer) but it's very cool to see.

Very genuinely, if you've got any feedback about anything on the app, forecasts or otherwise, I'd love to hear it. It's a small team but we do our best and it feels like there are always a million things in the pipeline.

I don't know anything about Cliff Mass and his history but he's not working for us, and never has as far as I know.
 

RachelV

Administrator
Staff member
For those of you who don't use OpenSnow, what's your go-to for ski conditions / snow reports / weather?
 

Christy

Angel Diva
I get the Powder Poobah emails (it's also on their website) for the WA Cascades. I appreciate the info, but the reality is, I have a pass, so I just look to see if conditions there are decent or not. I can't really compare forecasts for all the ski areas with X hours of Seattle then decide anymore because I don't have all the passes + a willingness to pay for day tickets at the unaffiliated places. We used to do this, to some degree, but the multi pass system killed that.

For the Nordic trails near our cabin, I just look at their morning conditions report. Lately it's been a lot of "have that second cup of coffee..."
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
For those of you who don't use OpenSnow, what's your go-to for ski conditions / snow reports / weather?
I use OpenSnow a lot. But for the southeast I also follow SkiSoutheast when it comes to regional weather.

In general, the forecasting for the southeast, mid-Atlantic, and northeast is much better than a few years ago. It was cool when the snowmaking conditions graphs started showing up for the midwest and MidA/SE.
 

RachelV

Administrator
Staff member
I follow Chris Tomer @OpenSnow for his forecasts here in the west. ...

Not a huge deal but just for the record Chris Tomer also does not work for us. He's just one of many local Denver / Front Range meteorologists doing their own thing who's built up a good following.

Edited to add: He also posts at OnTheSnow! That's not us. :smile:
 
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cosmicplanks

Angel Diva
I've used Open Snow/Open Summit for years, although I don't use it as much in the summer. I LOVE the widget (so I can obsess over the weather every time I glance at my phone.) And I love Julian's reports. It's been a little wonky this season, but predicting the weather is not easy, so I totally get that.

Other than that, I will check my resort's forecast every now and then.
 

Pequenita

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Oh, I can see where I probably misunderstood @Pequenita's post--maybe she was just saying that was a guy she used to follow (when he was normal).
Oh, I thought he was for a hot second forecasting for OpenSnow, but yes, I followed him for 6 months, independently. A lot of the older guys had been doing their own localized list-serv type things.
 

ouncible

Diva in Training
I work at OpenSnow, ...

Very genuinely, if you've got any feedback about anything on the app, forecasts or otherwise, I'd love to hear it. It's a small team but we do our best and it feels like there are always a million things in the pipeline.
Another OpenSnow fan here! Considering the challenges, I'm always amazed at how reliable the forecasts run, especially with the detailed discussions to clarify the picture. I even get a lot of use off seasons from things like being able to check both Whitney Portal and Whitney Summit, or even taking a stab at trail conditions on Kauai. My one big wish would be for forecasts for those nasty stretches of mountain road (such as the Carson Spur on 88) where the weather can vary materially from nearby towns. Having an educated guess at "will the Spur be passable and would the pass be any better?" is extremely interesting information when powder chasing.
 

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