Alta & Snowbird snow report
Two separate resorts sharing one ridge, linked over the top through Mineral Basin. Alta is skiers-only and Snowbird takes snowboards, so a snowboarding party can ride one half and not the other. When avalanche risk spikes you are legally confined indoors: interlodge lockdowns of 52 and 60 hours are on the record.
United States · North America · live from the weather model at 2365–3353 m
Conditions right now
Read at summit elevation the moment you opened this page.
Hourly windows, accumulation ranges, confidence and travel flags, or the transparent 0–100 Ski Meter score.
Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), adapted for display. Elevations are approximate published figures; forecasts are model estimates, not guarantees.
The mountain right now
The live freezing level drawn on the elevation profile. Above the snow line, precipitation falls and stays as snow.
Terrain shape is schematic; elevations are the resort's approximate published figures.
Why it snows here
Little Cottonwood Canyon climbs from the Salt Lake valley floor to over 3,300 m in about 15 km, and that wall does the work: Alta averages roughly three and a half times the precipitation of Salt Lake City airport, closer to five and a half times in January. The Great Salt Lake adds about 5%, far less than its reputation suggests.
Reading Alta & Snowbird like a forecaster
The number that matters most at Alta & Snowbird is the difference between the base (2365 m) and the summit (3353 m): when the freezing level sits between the two, the mountain is split into rain or wet snow below and dry snow above. The Ski Meter reads the model at both elevations and scores the day with every point accounted for; the full report adds hourly timing, accumulation ranges and confidence tags so you can decide when to travel, not just whether.