Which Ski Resorts Open in November? 27 Destinations Scored on 10 Seasons

27 of the 53 destinations in the Opening-Week Snow Reliability Index traditionally open in November, more than in any other month. Their records then split violently: 7 were snow-ready in at least 8 of the last 10 seasons, and 6 were not snow-ready in a single one. Whistler Blackcomb tops the month at 10/10 with a mean opening-week depth of 135.9 cm; Sierra Nevada sits at 0/10 with 0.6 cm.

November is the month where the question is worth asking at all. In October the answer is no almost everywhere; by late December most of these mountains are in winter. November is genuinely uncertain, which is why the ten-season record is worth more here than anywhere else on the calendar.

Opening in the first week of November

3 destinations. Snow-ready means modelled snow depth of at least 30 cm on at least 3 of the 7 opening-week days, natural snow only, no snowmaking modelled.

Index #	Destination	Country	Opening week	Score	Mean depth	Model cell
16	Lake Louise	Canada	Early November	8/10	41.8CM	1652M
42	Breckenridge	United States	Early November	0/10	10.7CM	3793M
43	Åre	Sweden	November	0/10	7.9CM	412M

Opening in mid November

4 destinations, windows of 11 to 17 November.

Index #	Destination	Country	Opening week	Score	Mean depth	Model cell
18	Sölden	Austria	Mid November	6/10	37.6CM	2997M
36	Vail	United States	Mid November	1/10	13.5CM	3432M
40	Mammoth Mountain	United States	Mid November	1/10	8.2CM	3202M
46	Killington	United States	Mid November	0/10	4.4CM	1196M

Opening in late November

20 destinations, windows of 21 to 27 November. This is the largest single opening window in the index.

Index #	Destination	Country	Opening week	Score	Mean depth	Model cell
1	Whistler Blackcomb	Canada	Late November	10/10	135.9CM	664M
4	Zermatt	Switzerland	Late November	10/10	76.6CM	1608M
6	Shymbulak	Kazakhstan	Late November	10/10	65.3CM	3222M
10	St. Moritz	Switzerland	Late November	9/10	66.9CM	2764M
11	Livigno	Italy	Late November	9/10	60.8CM	1931M
12	Val Thorens	France	Late November	9/10	54.8CM	2387M
21	Jackson Hole	United States	Late November	5/10	29.7CM	1966M
22	Big Sky	United States	Late November	5/10	25.9CM	3246M
24	Trysil	Norway	Late November	3/10	18.1CM	1064M
25	Cortina d'Ampezzo	Italy	Late November	2/10	33.5CM	1258M
27	Telluride	United States	Late November	2/10	19CM	3820M
29	Aspen Snowmass	United States	Late November	2/10	17.3CM	2587M
30	Palisades Tahoe	United States	Late November	2/10	16.7CM	1916M
33	Tremblant	Canada	Late November	1/10	16.3CM	909M
35	Alta & Snowbird	United States	Late November	1/10	14.9CM	3111M
37	Park City	United States	Late November	1/10	13.1CM	2146M
39	Baqueira Beret	Spain	Late November	1/10	10CM	2364M
47	Nozawa Onsen	Japan	Late November	0/10	4.3CM	1509M
50	Yongpyong	South Korea	Late November	0/10	1.1CM	1392M
52	Sierra Nevada	Spain	Late November	0/10	0.6CM	3190M

The model cell column is the elevation the weather reanalysis assigns to that destination's grid square, being the average of all the terrain inside it. Read a score against the cell, not against the summit: the full index sets out why. Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), adapted for display.

What separates the top of November from the bottom

Not altitude. That is the useful finding, and it is visible in two rows of the same table. Whistler Blackcomb is read through a model cell at 664 m, the lowest cell of any destination in the index scoring 8 or better, and it is snow-ready in all 10 seasons at a mean of 135.9 cm. Breckenridge is read at 3793 m, the highest cell of any destination scoring zero, and its first-week-of-November window has not once reached the threshold, averaging 10.7 cm.

A Pacific storm track that is already running in November beats three thousand metres of dry continental air that is not. In November, when the storms arrive matters more than how high you stand. By January that stops being true, which is exactly why this index scores the opening week rather than the season.

If you are looking at the American resorts

11 of the November openings are in the United States, and none of them reaches 8 of 10 seasons. The strongest is Big Sky at 5/10 and 25.9 cm. That is a coin flip, not a plan. It is also the clearest case in the index of a group of resorts that open on time every year on snow the sky did not provide, which is a real thing to know before you book flights rather than a reason to avoid them.

How to use this before you book

Read the score as the base rate and then check the actual weather. The score tells you what November has historically done at that grid point; it cannot tell you what this November is doing. For that, open the destination file for live model conditions read at summit elevation, or the live board for a whole-hemisphere view in one screen.

Which ski resorts open in November?