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. Snow report on the official site ↗
| Date | Weather | Snow (cm) | Low / high (°C) | Wind (km/h) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon 9 Nov | Snow | 1 | 1 to 6 | 26 |
| Tue 10 Nov | Rain | 0 | 5 to 8 | 28 |
| Wed 11 Nov | Cloudy | 0 | 5 to 11 | 20 |
| Thu 12 Nov | Cloudy | 0 | 5 to 11 | 10 |
| Fri 13 Nov | Rain | 0 | 4 to 9 | 21 |
| Sat 14 Nov | Snow | 0 | 2 to 5 | 12 |
| Sun 15 Nov | Snow | 1 | 2 to 3 | 9 |
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
Smith Butte Sno-Park is a ski area in United States, at about 1,175 m. Its mapped area is about 0.2 km across.
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 398 cm of snowfall a season, 177th of 3,069 worldwide and 30th in the United States. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2023/24 (515 cm), brought more than 6 times as much as the leanest, 2014/15 (85 cm). December brings as much snow as January here (118 and 115 cm on average).
The nearest city of any size is Vancouver, about 104 km away in a straight line.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pineside Sno-Park | 4.9 km | 311 cm | 441 |
The most snow falls in December. March brings 59% 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. For skiing, though, the amount matters more than the share: March brings 68 cm, more than the median of 30 cm.
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 398 cm, and 4 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2014/15 with 85 cm; the biggest was 2023/24 with 515 cm (6.1 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.
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