A weather-model figure, worked out the same way for every ski area, and lower than what actually falls. Use it to compare ski areas, not against the resort’s own totals. How we measure →
Updated: 10 Nov 2026, 12:15
Elevation of the ski area’s centre point, taken from a digital elevation model. It is not the base-to-summit range.
We do not show a snow depth here. The weather model we use reports snow lying on the ground — it knows nothing about grooming or snowmaking, and it is not the base depth a ski area publishes. In Japan we can check our figures against 234 weather stations. Outside Japan there is nothing to check them against, so we do not print a number we have not verified.
| Date | Weather | Snow (cm) | Low / high (°C) | Wind (km/h) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon 9 Nov | Cloudy | 0 | −2 to 12 | 22 |
| Tue 10 Nov | Cloudy | 0 | 2 to 10 | 15 |
| Wed 11 Nov | Snow showers | 1 | 0 to 5 | 21 |
| Thu 12 Nov | Snow showers | 4 | −2 to 0 | 16 |
| Fri 13 Nov | Snow showers | 3 | −3 to 0 | 16 |
| Sat 14 Nov | Cloudy | 0 | −4 to 2 | 8 |
| Sun 15 Nov | Cloudy | 0 | −2 to 4 | 6 |
The five add up to the 100-point Powder Score: more fresh snow, more on the way and colder air all push it up. How we measure
Active Backwoods Retreat Ski Trails is a ski area in United States, at about 492 m. Its mapped area is about 4.4 km across.
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 133 cm of snowfall a season, 1,909th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 265th in the United States. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2022/23 (194 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2023/24 (79 cm). December brings as much snow as January here (39 and 32 cm on average).
This ski area does not put a camera on its own slopes. What follows are nearby cameras, not the pistes themselves.
Footage remains the copyright of each operator. JAPANSNOWLINE neither stores nor redistributes it.
Some cameras here are provided by Windy.com. Footage plays in Windy’s own player; we do not store it. Windy.com
Modelled from weather data the same way at all 3,069 ski areas we cover. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Within 50 km in a straight line. Ski areas in the same weather-model cell (about 30 km across) get the same figure.
| Ski area | Distance | Seasonal snowfall | World rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big Powderhorn Mountain Resort | 11.0 km | 142 cm | 1775 |
| Black River Basin | 15.0 km | 144 cm | 1745 |
| Jackson Creek Summit | 17.0 km | 144 cm | 1745 |
| Whitecap Mountain | 20.0 km | 119 cm | 2097 |
| MECCA Trails | 31.0 km | 103 cm | 2336 |
The most snow falls in December. March brings 94% of January’s snowfall. That is a gentler fall than the median for ski areas in the United States (85%). In amount, March brings 30 cm, about the same as the median of 30 cm.
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 133 cm, and 5 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2023/24 with 79 cm; the biggest was 2022/23 with 194 cm (2.5 times as much). For 33% of the 534 ski areas in the United States the leanest winter was 2015/16; here it was a different one.
Snowfall each winter (December–March total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.
The weather map, and where it sits among nearby ski areas.
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