Few things have truly disrupted the ski industry in the last 100 years. Think the rise of snowboarding, the invention of shaped skis or the introduction of the multi-resort season pass.
Yet another metamorphosis is literally hanging in the air. It’s the arrival of artificial intelligence-informed snow forecasting. And if the scientists — the very people the technology threatens to replace — are correct, starting this season a day on the slopes will never be the same.
Especially here.
“There is,” local forecaster Evan Thayer said, “no place that will benefit more from AI weather forecasting than Utah.”
Imagine a family of skiers scheduling a vacation and picking the resort they’ll visit based on which one will get the most snow during the three days they’re in town. Then, imagine them being able to pull up to a ski resort just as the flakes start falling. Throughout the day, they might receive alerts about where snow is piling up on different areas of the mountain, or when to duck into the trees to avoid the wind. An app on their phone might even tell them that powder can be found in the east bowl in the morning, but that it will be as slippery as a bobsled track after lunch. Then, after an optimal day on the slopes, they’ll time their departure for exactly 4:18 p.m., the start of the only 35-minute break in the storm.
“It’s pretty exciting,” said Jim Steenburgh, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Utah. “I think it’s going to be a time of revolutionary change in weather forecasting.”
And, Steenburgh and Thayer agree, on-mountain improvements are just the tip of AI forecasting’s potential.