Summer Snow Falls at Canadian Ski Resort
While most of North America’s ski resorts are basking in the heat of summer and welcoming mountain bikers and hikers to their slopes, Alberta’s Banff Sunshine Village just got it’s first peek at winter.
The Canadian ski area got a dusting of snow Sunday night (August 2, 2026) as the snow level dropped to 7,800 feet and temperatures dropped into the high 30s. Although the snow had already melted by mid-morning on Monday, the records (by records, we mean screenshots of the resort webcams) show that Ullr did indeed show himself.
For most places, an August snowfall is pretty out of the ordinary. However, Sunshine Village has been known to see light snowfall when temperatures drop at night, even in the summer, due to its high base elevation (7,200 ft.) and location.
Last summer, Sunshine Village got a couple of fairly significant July dustings, although they also melted out pretty quickly. By October, snow began to fall more consistently and eventually piled up, allowing the resort to celebrate its earliest opening day in the last 40 years on November 2. An early opening led to the resort’s snowiest winter on record and allowed them to reopen for two weeks in June this year.
In August of 2024, Sunshine Village also got a bit of summer snowfall and even more in September. While the 2024/25 season wasn’t quite as fruitful for Sunshine Village as this past winter, we still conducted our 2024/25 gear test there in April of 2025 with pretty excellent conditions.
Overnight temperatures are expected to warm up through the rest of the week, which will make chances of more summer snow pretty slim. Sunshine Village is open for its summer season until September 20 and has yet to announce an opening date for the 2026/27 winter season.
Historically, El Niño winters, like the one predicted to come, have meant milder-than-average temperatures across Western Canada. However, ski season is still a ways out, and long-term forecasts tend to be more of an inference than anything else. Although if this July snowfall means the season will be anything like last year, it could be time to invest in new powder skis.
Related: A Million Acres Burned: Wildfire Smoke and the Privilege of Fresh Air
Leave a Reply