Few sports are as tied to the weather as the ones we do in the mountains in the heart of winter. Conditions can be life-changing, sometimes in the best way, sometimes in the worst. The point of this post is to share what I’ve learned over the last 15 years living in the Tetons, skiing and riding well over 100 days a year, and how those lessons might help you forecast more effectively. Best part? It’s all free.
This guide is written for what I’d call a “serious” skier, snowboarder, or snowmobiler, someone whose happiness is disproportionately tied to their sport and who’s willing to click around a bit to evaluate weather the way someone might evaluate their stock portfolio. If you want something more turnkey, I recommend paying for an OpenSnow subscription (and yes, like OpenAI, OpenSnow is neither open nor free, but it’s a solid product).
If you either don’t want to pay or want the tools to build your own “personal forecast”, one that, frankly, often beats the pros, this post is for you. I promise it’s not that hard, and it’s actually pretty fun. I’m writing this for a broad audience, so if some sections feel too basic, skip ahead to the good stuff (like using PivotWeather and University of Utah tools).
A few things worth stating upfront:
- Forecasting weather is always hard, and it’s even harder in the mountains. Take every forecast, from a pro or an amateur, with a giant grain of salt.
- The farther out the forecast is, the less confidence you should have in it. There are exceptions, which I’ll get into.
- I almost never pay attention to “macro” seasonal forecasts. Most of them are clickbait. La Niña/El Niño correlations are strong enough to be worth noting, and I reference BestSnow.net for that, but otherwise I ignore long-range hype.
- If you travel in the backcountry, your local avalanche forecast should be a daily read, even if you’re not heading out that day.
- ***I’m not trying to teach you how to read an avalanche forecast, do not think otherwise and please take a class***
- I live in the Tetons, but this general process applies to any U.S. mountain region.
Below, I’m going to walk through how I forecast based on different time horizons. Personally, I check short-term data daily, medium-term a few times a week, and long-term a few times a month.
Short Term: What’s Going to Happen in the Next 1–2 Days?
Avalanche Center:
I always start with the local avalanche forecast. Beyond the daily danger rating, problem types, and the last 24 hours of observations, I pay the closest attention to snowfall totals, wind direction, and wind speeds. Most avalanche centers also include a short-term weather outlook covering the next 24–48 hours, which becomes my baseline. I focus on temperature trends, wind, and of course, expected snow totals.
NOAA RPK: (Recreational Planning Forecast):
In the Tetons, the National Weather Service issues a dedicated backcountry forecast every 12 hours. It’s one of the most useful short-term tools available because it’s written specifically for our mountain zone rather than an entire region.
NOAA Pinpoint:
If I want to see what the NWS model is predicting for a specific spot, I’ll drop a pin on their map and read the pinpoint forecast. This gives me a sense of which micro-regions are expected to do better or worse in the next day or two. It’s not perfect, but it provides helpful color when choosing where to go. I always start with the local avalanche report.
Medium Term: What’s Likely in the Next 3–7 Days?
The NWS pinpoint forecasts are still useful beyond 48 hours, but for the 3–7 day window I rely on three tools I find significantly better. Just remember: once you look past about day four, forecast confidence drops off a cliff.
University of Utah Plumes:
If I’m short on time, this is my go-to medium-range tool. The downside is that the site is frequently down due to traffic. But when it works, it’s fantastic: simple to read, fast to interpret, and excellent for showing forecast variance. You’ll know right away if the models generally agree or if things are chaotic.
Here is how to navigate:
Utah Snow Ensemble (Experimental) (left side bottom) → Plumes (bottom) → Pick your location (scroll down to see all)
Pivotal Weather:
My new favorite, and honestly, the only tool you really need for literally all snow forecasting. It gives you access to all the major models in one place. The advanced features are behind a paywall, but the free version is more than enough.
Here’s the exact workflow I use:
Model (top bar) → ECMWF (left side) → wait for it to load
Left sidebar: Winter Weather → Total Snowfall (10:1 ratio or Kuchera if available)
Top left: set to 180 hours
Then just hover your mouse over your location.
Boom: you now have a 7-day (180-hour) snowfall forecast from the world’s most reliable global model. I also will use the GFS as an “optimistic” look (its more wrong than the ECMWF model, to the upside).
NWS Discussions: For the Tetons, we usually rely on the Riverton location’s discussion. Every zone has its own discussion, which you can find here.
Long Term: What’s Happening Beyond a Week?
Pivotal Weather (Ensembles):
For anything beyond 7 days, I switch to ensemble data. On Pivotal, I go to Ensemble → EPS → 360 hours, then toggle to Quantitative Precipitation → Total QPF (Mean).
This isn’t snowfall, it’s total liquid precipitation, but you can do some simple back-of-the-envelope math to get a rough sense of whether snow is likely and approximately how much. Just remember that anything past 180 hours is extremely low confidence. Think of it as pattern-spotting/will it maybe snow etc – not forecasting.
For Geeking Out on Long-Term Averages
BestSnow.net:
This site looks like it time-traveled here from 1999 (Geocities energy), but it’s a gem for historical data. It’s full of long-term snowfall averages, regional breakdowns, and correlation patterns — and impressively, the creator still updates it. If you like context, trends, and history, it’s absolutely worth bookmarking.
Other Resources from the Tetons
- Raw snow sensor data (I built my first app on this!)
- Weather station map
- Historical Weather Data – Great for figuring out “how good of a winter is this, really?”
Happy Hunting!
