AI-Powered PEAKS Model Improves OpenSnow Predictions for Skiers Seeking Powder

OpenSnow, a weather service that caters to skiers searching for deep powder, has debuted PEAKS, a new weather model that delivers better accuracy in mountain terrain with help from machine learning AI.

Joel Gratz, OpenSnow’s founding meteorologist, described the model in a recent blog post. 

PEAKS took 18 months of development, training, and testing before going live on OpenSnow this month. It’s now creating every precipitation forecast OpenSnow releases, with plans for it to power temperature and wind forecasts by the end of 2025.

According to Gratz, PEAKS boosts precipitation (read: snow) accuracy by 42%. The gains in temperature and wind are higher, sitting at 82% and 72%, respectively. The model takes standard weather models and makes them higher resolution before delivering them to OpenSnow subscribers. To do so, PEAKS looks at historical storms. Then, it reviews the weather patterns that produced conditions missed by other models. 

Gratz cited Alta Ski Area, Utah, as an example, comparing normal forecasts to the PEAKS forecast and the actual snow totals. Per the graph he shared, PEAKS was bang on. See below.

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Gratz noted that the forecasts skiers rely on are difficult to produce. 

Most weather models cover wide swaths of terrain that are 15 to 25 miles wide, with every area in the “box” getting the same forecast. If you’re somewhere flat, that’s fine. Undulating mountain terrain complicates matters, though. Here, the weather shifts rapidly based on the elevation.

“Most other weather forecast companies are focused on where most people live, which is cities and NOT mountains, so they are NOT focused on making mountain forecasts more accurate,” Gratz wrote.

“But OpenSnow is focused on the mountains, so we were uniquely motivated to solve this problem,” he added.

PEAKS departs from OpenSnow’s previous approach. Historically, the forecasters would input multiple models and then tweak the data based on elevation. Gratz called this technique a “band-aid.”

Looking ahead, Gratz said OpenSnow hopes to introduce a public-facing, real-time accuracy tracking system for PEAKS.

To read the complete post from Gratz, click here.

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