Snow 48h
7cm
Next 72h
3cm
- Snow 24h
- 7 cm
- Next 24h
- 3 cm
- Temperature
- −4°C
- Max wind
- 13 km/h
- Elevation
- 2,078–3,402 m
Updated: 12 Oct 2026, 09:34
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. Snow report on the official site ↗
7-day outlook
| Date | Weather | Snow (cm) | Low / high (°C) | Wind (km/h) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sun 11 Oct | Snow | 10 | −4 to 1 | 20 |
| Mon 12 Oct | Snow | 1 | −6 to −1 | 11 |
| Tue 13 Oct | Fog | 0 | −6 to 2 | 12 |
| Wed 14 Oct | Cloudy | 0 | −8 to 4 | 9 |
| Thu 15 Oct | Cloudy | 0 | −3 to 7 | 8 |
| Fri 16 Oct | Cloudy | 0 | −2 to 11 | 9 |
| Sat 17 Oct | Cloudy | 0 | 1 to 13 | 10 |
Score breakdown
Fresh (48h) 17/40
Forecast (24h) 7/25
Snow quality 11/20
Wind 8/10
Base 2/5
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
Big Sky Resort, in Montana, United States, runs from 2,078 m at the base to 3,402 m at the top. The map shows 458 marked runs and 45 lifts (about 238 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 170 cm of snowfall a season, 1,416th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 137th in the United States. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (224 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2014/15 (93 cm). December brings as much snow as January here (41 and 34 cm on average).
Runs and lifts
Counted from the runs and lifts drawn on OpenStreetMap, within the boundary of the ski area. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Marked runs
458
Run length
238km
Lifts
45
Vertical
1,325m
Top 3,402 m · base 2,078 m
Run map
EasyIntermediateAdvancedExpertExtremeOther Lift
Slope shape, difficulty and lift types
The shape of the mountain
Longest run on the map4.2 km
Steepest pitch49°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs12.7°
Which way the slopes face
North 34%
East 41%
South 18%
West 6%
75% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. Those slopes get the least sun, so the snow lasts longer.
By difficulty
Easy 139 · 65 km
Intermediate 128 · 89.9 km
Advanced 148 · 68.9 km
Expert 26 · 8.8 km
Extreme 15 · 5.2 km
Other 2 · 0.4 km
Lift types
- Chairlift25
- Platter8
- Magic carpet8
- Gondola3
- Cable car1
See past trail maps on Skimap.org ↗
Source: OpenSkiMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0). How finely ski areas are drawn varies by region, so treat the counts as indicative. Vertical is the difference between the highest and lowest points of the mapped runs and lifts.
Live cameras
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
How much snow it gets
Measured by us across 3,069 ski areas by one identical method. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Seasonal snowfall
170cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
93cm
The middle winter of the 12: 165 cm. The best: 224 cm.
World rank
1416
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
137
of 534 in United States
Elevation rank
78
Highest to lowest, of 534 in United States. The centre point sits at 2,500 m, 1,972 m above the national median.
Compared with what is nearby
Within 50 km straight line. Measured the same way, so the ranks compare directly. The weather model works on cells about 30 km across; ski areas in the same cell get the same figure, and these numbers cannot separate them.
| Ski area | Distance | Seasonal snowfall | World rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pioneer Mountain Resort | 5.7 km | 145 cm | 1729 |
When it falls, and how winters differ
Month by month
Month by month, the most snow falls in February. March brings as much as January, or more. In amount, March brings 48 cm, more than the median of 30 cm.
41cmDec
34cmJan
48cmFeb
48cmMar
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 170 cm, and 7 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2014/15 with 93 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 224 cm (2.4 times as much). For 33% of the 534 ski areas in the United States, the leanest winter was the same 2014/15: bad winters tend to hit a whole region at once.
93
139
200
224
155
199
167
136
198
154
210
162
14/1515/1616/1717/1818/1919/2020/2121/2222/2323/2424/2525/26
Snowfall each winter (December–March total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.
More places to look
Guides covering United States
- Which Famous Ski Resorts Actually Get the Most Snow? 24 Names, Measured Niseko is 526th in the world for snowfall. Zermatt is 554th, Jackson Hole 924th, Aspen 1,201st. Measured identically across 3,069 ski areas, the names everyone books and the places it actually snows turn out to be two different lists.
- A Black Run in Colorado and a Black Run in Austria Are Not the Same Thing. The Maps Prove It. Across 2,888 ski areas: 39% of American runs are graded advanced or harder, and 9% of Austrian ones. Nobody thinks Austria is four times gentler. The grades are measuring different things.
- Niseko vs Whistler: Whistler Is the Outlier, Vail Is the Rule Whistler is the world's 29th snowiest ski area. Vail is 1,335th — and 288 Japanese ski areas get more snow than the resort that defines American skiing.
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