How scores work

1. The forecast

For each place, Snowpace fetches an hourly mountain forecast: 7 days back and 5 days ahead. Downhill areas get two, at the base and at the summit, combined into one for mid-mountain; nordic centres get one at mid elevation. See Weather forecasts.

2. Eight weather factors

From the forecast, Snowpace looks at eight things for each day:

• New snow, 24 hours — how much has fallen since yesterday
• Snowfall, 3 days — a stand-in for coverage and how fresh the surface is
• Freeze–thaw — whether it melted and refroze into crust, or melted and stayed above freezing as slush
• Temperature — measured against the temperature you said you prefer
• Wind — exposure and windchill up high
• Rain — recent or forecast rain is always bad, for every activity
• Snow falling — welcome for downhill or snowshoeing, slow going on skinny skis
• Cloud cover — flat light versus a bluebird day

Four of them are measured against your own settings: temperature, wind, new snow, and snow falling. See Your settings.

3. Judged for your activity

The same weather means different things on different gear: wind matters more on an open skate lane than on a sheltered snowshoe trail, and fresh snow is a gift on a downhill run but slow going in a set track. So each activity weighs the eight factors in its own way.

4. Is there snow?

No amount of sunshine makes up for no snow, so the snowpack holds the whole score down when it's thin, and a bare hill scores 0 whatever the weather. For skate and classic, a big dump of new snow holds the score down too, until the trails are packed and reset. See Snowpack and deep new snow.

5. The score, and why

What comes out is the score, shown with its band. Why? under the dial lists what's holding it back that day, the costliest first.

See it in action

The sample days on the Snowpace home page run the app's own scoring on made-up weather: pick a day and an activity, and watch the answer change.