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
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 | 19 |
| Tue 10 Nov | Cloudy | 0 | 3 to 15 | 15 |
| Wed 11 Nov | Cloudy | 0 | 2 to 15 | 22 |
| Thu 12 Nov | Cloudy | 0 | 0 to 13 | 19 |
| Fri 13 Nov | Snow | 16 | −2 to 7 | 37 |
| Sat 14 Nov | Snow showers | 13 | −3 to −1 | 21 |
| Sun 15 Nov | Snow | 3 | −6 to 0 | 11 |
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
Northstar at Tahoe Resort, in United States, runs from 1,921 m at the base to 2,625 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 6.4 km across, with 125 marked runs and 20 lifts (about 83 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 390 cm of snowfall a season, 193rd of 3,069 worldwide and 32nd in the United States. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2022/23 (702 cm), brought more than 4 times as much as the leanest, 2014/15 (172 cm). December brings as much snow as January here (104 and 97 cm on average).
The nearest city of any size is Reno, about 41 km away in a straight line.
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.
72% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east; plenty of the terrain faces the sun as well, so the lean is modest.
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Palisades Tahoe | 10.0 km | 477 cm | 92 |
| Palisades Tahoe Alpine Meadows | 14.0 km | 587 cm | 46 |
| Tahoe Donner Downhill Ski Area | 15.0 km | 519 cm | 79 |
| Sugar Bowl Resort | 17.0 km | 620 cm | 35 |
| Diamond Peak | 20.0 km | 296 cm | 496 |
The most snow falls in December. March brings 99% of January’s snowfall. That is a gentler fall than the median for ski areas in the United States (85%). In amount, March brings 96 cm, more than the median of 30 cm.
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 390 cm, and 7 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2014/15 with 172 cm; the biggest was 2022/23 with 702 cm (4.1 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.
Other booking sites: Booking.com ↗ · Agoda ↗
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