Powder Reliability Leaderboard

Historical powder reliability ranked across all resorts

La Niña: Hokkaido typically above average. Honshu effects vary by region.
Rank Resort Overall Powder Days Base Snow Quality Conditions
1 Nozawa Onsen Snow Resort 74 81 92 46 36
2 Myoko Suginohara Ski Resort 73 77 67 83 25
3 Ikenotaira Onsen Alpen Blick 72 70 83 68 36
4 Niseko United 72 45 100 93 69
5 Kiroro Snow World 71 44 100 92 59
6 Hakuba Happo-One Snow Resort 70 48 100 75 69
7 Sapporo Kokusai Ski Resort 68 36 100 96 56
8 Geto Kogen Ski Resort 67 47 100 73 32
9 Kandatsu Snow Resort 63 77 76 24 29
10 Madarao Mountain Resort 63 58 77 62 39
11 Sapporo Teine 62 24 100 88 69
12 Joetsu Kokusai Ski Resort 60 75 79 12 39
13 Rusutsu Resort 58 19 100 88 49
14 Furano Ski Resort 57 13 100 93 55
15 Hoshino Resorts Nekoma 52 32 75 62 54
16 Appi Kogen 52 13 92 84 40
17 Hoshino Resorts Tomamu 52 11 85 95 37
18 Takasu Snow Park 50 30 72 60 71
19 Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama 48 28 79 — —
20 Zao Onsen Ski Resort 43 12 55 91 50
21 Tazawako Ski Resort 42 21 47 81 35
22 Canmore Ski Village 21 4 0 79 50
How scores are calculated
Powder Days 40%

average powder days per season, where a powder day has ≥ 20 cm of new snow from either the weather station OR the resort's own day-over-day depth gain (whichever catches it). Normalised to a per-window ceiling (20 days in peak season, 30 over the whole season).

Base 25%

how consistently the resort holds a deep base. For each season, the share of reported days (Dec 15 – Mar 31) with ≥ 150 cm of resort-reported on-mountain depth scores on a smooth scale — from 0 at ≤ 40% of days deep to full credit at ≥ 55% — then averaged across seasons. Adapted from Witmer 1986 / Abegg 1996; uses on-mountain depth, not the valley station.

Snow Quality 20%

fraction of snowfall days where ERA5 daily mean temperature ≤ −5°C at resort elevation, a proxy for dry, high snow-to-liquid-ratio powder (Kuchera & Ely 2004). ERA5 temperature is lapse-rate corrected to each resort's mid-point elevation. Surface temperature is an approximation of the full vertical profile.

Conditions 15%

fraction of powder days calmer than the resort's own typical winter wind (below its 75th-percentile ERA5 wind). A relative anchor is used because absolute ERA5 grid wind reflects the model's 9 km terrain cell, not on-slope sheltering. Weighted low and best read as a hint, not a ranking factor.

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