About

I’m 25. I’ve been snowboarding for 10 years and studying weather for 12, so I’m always the one in my group who makes the call on when we go and how.

Making that call used to take a lot of work. I’d check several different sites that all said something different, then dig back through the past few days of weather to work out what had actually happened to the snow. My friends always wanted to be there for first lift, even on mornings I knew there had been an overnight freeze and it wouldn’t get fun until the sun got on it. Mid-season, when it was ice almost every day, I tracked the cloud cover every single day just to see if it was worth going at all.

I got tired of doing all of that by hand, so I built my own version: the snow forecast I always wished existed.

I love slush riding just about as much as I love powder, and I know people who think I’m crazy for that. That’s the point, though. Everyone has a different idea of a perfect day on the hill.

Free

See when conditions will shape up for the average rider, at every mountain, hour by hour.

Pro

Set your own conditions, exactly how you like them. Our snow physics mixed with your favorite conditions gives you a fully customized forecast you can share with your crew.

Storm Mode

Track the next storm at any mountain, summit to base, and race up to three mountains against each other to see who gets the most.

And much more. Enjoy the site.

— Ethan, founder

Same temperature: 34°F. Three completely different snow conditions.

• After a rainy day and a cold nightice
• After a dry, cold weekfirm and grippy
• In full sun after a clear, frozen nightsoft spring corn

The difference is what happened before, so we track the snow’s history, not just today’s numbers.

1. 1We replay the last five days of weather at every mountain, hour by hour.
2. 2We follow the snow as new snow piles up, rain soaks it, the sun softens it, a clear night refreezes it, and the crowds track it out.
3. 3We score every hour, 0–10, for how it will actually ride, and find the best window to go.

Weather comes from Open-Meteo, and mountain locations and elevations from OpenStreetMap. Everything after that, from how the snow has changed to the score for each hour, is our own model.

It is a forecast, not a report from the mountain. It doesn’t know about grooming, closures or avalanche conditions, so check with the mountain before you go.

SlopeGauge is run by Independent Housing LLC, the company that sells the season pass. Questions, ideas, or a forecast you think we got wrong: write to slopestate@gmail.com. A real person reads every one.