Vail snow report
The Back Bowls are both the draw and the catch. They fall away south off an east-west summit ridge, so at 39.6°N these open, largely treeless slopes take near-maximum winter sun: they need a deep base and good timing, and they crust fast after a clear spell. I-70 runs through the middle of the valley and is the only road in.
United States · North America · live from the weather model at 2475–3527 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
High continental Rockies: Pacific moisture has already been wrung out crossing several ranges, so storms arrive cold and dry and the snow falls at very low density. The long-run average is around 900 cm a season, but the spread is the real story, from 777 cm in 2023-24 down to 427 cm in 2025-26, the worst snowpack on record here.
Reading Vail like a forecaster
The number that matters most at Vail is the difference between the base (2475 m) and the summit (3527 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.