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. Snow report on the official site ↗
| Date | Weather | Snow (cm) | Low / high (°C) | Wind (km/h) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon 9 Nov | Clear | 0 | 0 to 11 | 8 |
| Tue 10 Nov | Cloudy | 0 | 1 to 8 | 18 |
| Wed 11 Nov | Partly cloudy | 0 | 0 to 9 | 9 |
| Thu 12 Nov | Clear | 0 | −1 to 10 | 9 |
| Fri 13 Nov | Cloudy | 0 | 0 to 12 | 9 |
| Sat 14 Nov | Cloudy | 0 | 0 to 9 | 12 |
| Sun 15 Nov | Snow showers | 2 | −4 to 1 | 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
Steamboat Ski Resort, in United States, runs from 2,101 m at the base to 3,213 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 8.1 km across, with 205 marked runs and 20 lifts (about 124 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 236 cm of snowfall a season, 816th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 59th in the United States. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2022/23 (329 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2014/15 (138 cm). December brings as much snow as January here (62 and 59 cm on average).
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.
Only 23% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. The most common direction is west (61%).
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Howelson Hill Ski Area | 6.5 km | 189 cm | 1248 |
The most snow falls in December. March brings 90% of January’s snowfall. That is in line with the median for ski areas in the United States (85%). In amount, March brings 53 cm, more than the median of 30 cm.
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 236 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2014/15 with 138 cm; the biggest was 2022/23 with 329 cm (2.4 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.
Other booking sites: Booking.com ↗ · Agoda ↗
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