OpenSnow vs Mountain Visibility Forecast

OpenSnow is your trusted source for the most accurate snow forecast, snow report, and severe weather maps. "Weather forecasting for the mountains takes extra focus, analysis, and precision, which is exactly what OpenSnow provides. The app is incredible, even for super weather nerds like myself." – Cody Townsend, Pro Skier 15-Day Snow Forecasts Finding the location that has the best conditions can feel overwhelming. With OpenSnow, deciding where to go is easy. View the latest 15-day snow forecast, snow report, conditions history, and mountain webcams for your favorite locations in just a few seconds. Local Daily Snow Experts Instead of spending hours sifting through weather data, get the inside scoop in just a few minutes. Our local experts write a new Daily Snow forecast each day in the winter for regions around the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Have one of our expert local forecasters guide you to the best conditions. 3D Weather + Snow Maps We make it easy to track incoming storms with super-res radar and global precipitation, radar, and snow forecast maps. You can also view 3D maps for snow depth, avalanche risk, slope angle, active fires, air quality, wildfire smoke, public and private land ownership, and more. Download high-resolution satellite maps to view offline. PEAKS + StormNet PEAKS is our mountain weather forecast model that is up to 50% more accurate in complex terrain. StormNet is our severe weather forecast model that produces real-time, high-resolution forecasts for lightning, hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes. Combined, PEAKS + StormNet provide a first-of-its-kind, fully operational multi-component weather forecast system. Daily Features • 15-Day Hourly Forecasts • Current + Forecast Radar • Precipitation Forecast Maps • Air Quality Forecasts • Wildfire Smoke Forecast Maps • 50,000+ Weather Stations • 3D + Offline Maps • Land Boundary + Private Ownership Maps • Recent Satellite Maps Snow + Ski Features • 15-Day Snow Forecast • Powder Quality Forecast • Snow Depth Map • Season Snowfall Map • Snow Forecast Alerts • Snow Forecast Maps • Offline Ski Resort Trail Maps • Snow Forecast + Report Widgets • Historical Snow Reports Severe Weather Features (US only) • Super-Res Radar • Lightning Risk • Tornado Risk • Hail Risk • Damaging Winds Risk • Severe Weather Alerts Free Features • My Location 15-Day Forecast • Snow Forecast 15-Day Summary • Historical Weather + Snow Reports • Snow Report Alerts • Avalanche Forecasts • Mountain Webcams • Active Fires Map • Air Quality Map • Slope Angle + Slope Aspect — Free Trial — New accounts automatically receive the full OpenSnow Premium experience, with no credit card or payment information required. If you choose not to purchase OpenSnow after the free trial is over, you will be automatically downgraded to a free account and not charged. — In-App Purchase — OpenSnow Base is an auto-renewable subscription, which will renew yearly at $49.99 USD. Payment will be charged to the user's Apple account at confirmation of purchase. The subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. The account will be charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period and identify the cost of the renewal. If the auto-renewal fails due to a payment issue, you will still be able to access the paid content for 16 days while Apple attempts to collect payment. Subscriptions may be managed by the user and auto-renewal may be turned off by going to the user's Account Settings after purchase. Full terms and conditions can be found here: https://support.opensnow.com/legal/terms | https://support.opensnow.com/legal/privacy Sales through Apple will be governed by Apple’s refund policy. We value all of our customers and encourage you to provide feedback on your experience. Please get in touch with us by sending an email to hello@opensnow.com

Some days you can't tell from the window whether the mountain is out or that's just bright gray sky. Open this and it says one thing: IT'S OUT, PARTLY OUT, or NOT TODAY. Under that, the reason. How low the cloud is sitting over you, whether the summit itself is in cloud, how far the air is letting you see, whether wildfire smoke has drifted in. Seven mountains. Mount Rainier and the Olympics from Seattle, Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens from Portland, Mount Baker from Vancouver, Denali from Talkeetna, and Mount Angeles from Port Angeles and the Strait. The app picks the one nearest you, or you pick. The answer is computed, not collected. It reads aviation weather from the airports along your line of sight to the summit, and the cloud layers at the summit itself from the MET Norway model. Four things follow from that, and together they are why this app costs something. It works with nobody else using it. There is no feed to wait on and nobody who has to be awake, so there is a real answer at 6am on a Tuesday in January, and an answer for Olympia and Hood River and Bellingham, not only for the big city. It tells you about the next three days, not just this minute. Hour by hour, through daylight. You pay once. No subscription, no ads, nothing to unlock later. It collects nothing about you. Apple's privacy label on this app reads Data Not Linked to You. Where you are changes the answer, so that is built in. A Tacoma reading uses Tacoma's own overhead cloud and its 42-mile sightline, not Seattle's 60. On the morning you're the one clouded in, it tells you who isn't: "It's out from Tacoma, 26 miles off." WHAT'S IN IT Now. The verdict for your part of the region, with the reason underneath. Forty-two regions across the seven mountains. Forecast. The next three days, daylight hours, hour by hour. Glow. Every upcoming sunrise and sunset, graded. It splits cloud by height, because a low deck hides the mountain and high cloud catches the color. That is how you tell a good alpenglow from a gray one before you set the alarm. When the summit is in cloud, the grade is Skip. Spots. Viewpoints for each mountain, each with the reading from its nearest stations, sorted by distance from you, tap for directions. Moon. Its phase every day, and on a clear night how long it stays up. Volcano status. For Rainier, Hood, Baker and St. Helens, the current USGS alert level sits at the bottom of the screen. After dark it goes dark. Instead of telling you to go look, it tells you when first light is. Notifications are optional and rare: one when the mountain comes out, one when the light is about to be good, never at night. There is no account, anywhere. WHAT IT ISN'T This is a forecast, not a camera. There are no photos and no webcams in it. It reads instruments and models and gives you an honest read of the sky between you and the mountain, and some days it will be wrong. Denali is the hardest of the seven: airport instruments stop measuring cloud around 12,000 feet, and the summit is 20,310. Above that line the app is reading a model, and it says so. PRIVACY One thing leaves your phone: a push token, so a notification can find you. Apple calls that a Device ID. It is not linked to you and it is not used to track you. If you tap "Use my location," your location is used on the phone to pick the mountain and the region, and never leaves it. WHERE THE DATA COMES FROM Aviation weather from NOAA. Forecast from MET Norway (CC BY 4.0). Wildfire smoke from NOAA. Volcano alert levels from USGS. Terrain from USGS.