No snow yet. Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear once snow is on the ground or forecast.
Typical snowfall
79cm
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 →
Elevation
215–309 m
Across
1.0 km
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.
Bittersweet, in United States, runs from 215 m at the base to 309 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 1.0 km across, with 15 marked runs and 10 lifts (about 4.5 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 79 cm of snowfall a season, 2,595th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 435th in the United States. Its winters are fairly steady; even the leanest, 2023/24 (59 cm), reached 75% of the average. January is usually the snowiest month, with about 30 cm.
How much snow it gets
Modelled from weather data the same way at all 3,069 ski areas we cover. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Seasonal snowfall
79cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
59cm
The middle winter of the 12: 80 cm. The best: 99 cm.
World rank
2595
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
435
of 534 in United States
Elevation rank
447
Highest to lowest, of 534 in United States. The centre point sits at 263 m, 265 m below the national median.
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
15
Run length
4.5km
Lifts
10
Vertical
94m
Top 309 m · base 215 m
Run map
NoviceEasyIntermediateAdvancedLift
North is up. Runs are coloured by difficulty; black lines are lifts.Slope shape, difficulty and lift types
The shape of the mountain
Longest run on the map0.6 km
Steepest pitch16°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs8.8°
Which way the slopes face
North56%
East43%
South1%
West0%
99% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. Those slopes get the least sun, so the snow lasts longer.
The most snow falls in January. March brings 37% of January’s snowfall. That is a steeper fall than the median for ski areas in the United States (85%): the snow here is concentrated early in the season. In amount, March brings 11 cm, less than the median of 30 cm.
17cmDec
30cmJan
21cmFeb
11cmMar
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 79 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2023/24 with 59 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 99 cm (1.7 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.
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.