Planning a backcountry day in BC used to mean juggling four or five browser tabs, each showing you something different, none of them designed to talk to each other. The avalanche forecast is on one site. The weather models are somewhere else. Field observations from people in the zone last weekend? Another app entirely.
The tool landscape has gotten better, but also more fragmented. Snow Doctor, OpenSnow, SpotWx, Avalanche Canada, Snow-Forecast, Windy, Mountain-Forecast: they all have different strengths, different audiences, and some significant blind spots. This guide is a ground-up comparison of all of them, written specifically for BC backcountry skiers making real terrain decisions.
The short answer: you need Avalanche Canada and one good weather tool at minimum. The rest depends on how deep you want to go. Skip to the Friday-Night Workflow if you just want the recommendation.
Most of this guide has held up since spring. Snow Doctor is the row that moved, so if you read the original version, here is what is new:
- Point forecasts. Drop a pin anywhere on the map and get a forecast for that exact coordinate at that exact elevation, not a regional average.
- Backdated reports. Pull up any report from the last 30 days to see what the snowpack actually got.
- Offline reports. Save a report to your phone before you leave the signal and read the whole thing with no network.
- Scored zones with a terrain ceiling. Your saved slopes are ranked for today, tomorrow, and day three, with ATES terrain rating setting a hard ceiling on the score.
- Scoring preferences. A profile screen where you tell the scoring what kind of skier you are, and every score in the app shifts to match.
- Ski resorts. 41 BC and Rockies resorts on the same map, each with its own point forecast.
This update also adds OpenSnow to the comparison. It was missing from the first version and it shouldn't have been: it's the one tool here with a paid tier, its own weather model, and a human writing about British Columbia.
Feature Matrix: All Seven Tools
Verified August 2026. Features marked with a partial indicator are available in limited form only.
| Feature | Snow Doctor | OpenSnow | Avy Canada | SpotWx | Snow‑Forecast | Windy | Mtn‑Forecast |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avalanche danger ratings | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| Avalanche problems detail | ✓ | Links out | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| Field observations (MIN) | ✓ | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| Weather model forecasts | ✓ 5 models | ✓ PEAKS | ✕ | ✓ 20+ models | Basic | ✓ | ✓ |
| Backcountry-tuned charts | ✓ 7 charts | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| Point forecast at any coordinate | ✓ | Paid | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ |
| AI plain-language synthesis | ✓ | Resorts | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| Audio / Car Mode | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| 7-day weather history (free) | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| 7-day forward forecast (free) | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✓ | Paid only | ✓ | ✓ |
| Backdated reports (30 days) | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| Offline saved reports | ✓ | Maps only | Partial | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| Personal zone saving + scoring | ✓ | Saving only | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| Group trip plans beta | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| Shared gear checklist beta | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| ATES terrain ratings | ✓ | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| Ski resort forecasts | ✓ 41 | ✓ Global | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ 3,300+ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Multi-zone regional overview | ✓ | Resorts | Partial | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| Designed for BC / Rockies | ✓ | Global | ✓ | Global | Resort focus | Global | Global |
| Free to use | ✓ | Freemium | ✓ | ✓ | Partial | ✓ | ✓ |
Each Tool, Honestly Assessed
Snow Doctor
snowdoctor.ca
Snow Doctor is the only tool that combines avalanche danger, weather models, and field observations in one place, built specifically for BC and the Canadian Rockies. It covers 123 forecast regions plus 41 ski resorts. The core output is Doctor's Orders: one written briefing per region per day, built from the avalanche bulletin, nearby field reports, the weather at three elevations and Snow Doctor's own simulated snowpack. It runs In short, Weather, The snowpack (each buried layer with its date, where it sits, and whether the bulletin, the field reports and the simulation agree), Avalanches, What people are seeing, Getting the goods (where the good snow likely is and why) and Before you head out (what to watch for and test, plus questions for the skin track). An At a glance card on the avalanche tab lays out the layers of concern source by source, with a confidence score that explains the data behind it.
The weather layer runs 5 models (HRDPS at 2.5km resolution, RDPS, GDPS, GFS, and ECMWF) displayed in 7 interactive charts tuned for backcountry decisions: wet-slide windows, freeze-thaw cycles, wind at elevation, fog risk, solar radiation load. Every region gets 7 days back and 7 days forward. The summary table surfaces freezing level, dew point, wind chill, and precipitation with tooltips explaining backcountry relevance for each variable.
Point forecasts answer the question a regional forecast cannot. Tap the map anywhere and a pin lands: the app resolves the elevation, aspect, and ATES terrain rating under it, then pulls a forecast for that exact coordinate at that exact elevation. Somebody standing at 1,904m is asking about that spot, not about a centroid several kilometres away at a band elevation they did not choose. The same machinery drives the resort pins.
My Zones is the planning dashboard. Save the slopes you actually ski (elevation band, aspect, ATES rating, approach effort) and every one of them gets scored against the forecast for today, tomorrow, and day three, then ranked. Snow quality, wind loading, recent snow, and solar aspect all trade off against each other, but avalanche risk does not: the ATES rating combined with the day's danger rating sets a hard ceiling that nothing else in the score can lift. Good powder never argues its way past complex terrain on a Considerable day. A heatmap shows which cell each slope is sitting in, and a profile screen lets you tell the scoring what kind of skier you are, which shifts every score in the app.
Two more things nobody else does. Backdated reports let you pull up any of the last 30 days to see what the snowpack actually received rather than what was forecast, which is how you check a buried layer against the storm that made it. Offline reports save a full report to the device while you still have signal, and read back with no network at all: charts, field obs, Doctor's Orders and everything else, marked with the date it was saved. That one is app-only, since a browser cannot be relied on past the last bar of service.
Rounding it out: Audio / Car Mode plays Doctor's Orders on the drive in with chapter navigation and 1x to 2x speed controls, Ask the Doctor answers follow-up questions with the zone's data already in context, and the map carries a satellite skin, 3D terrain, search, and an optional ATES layer.
BC/Rockies backcountry skiers who want avy + weather + field obs in one place with AI synthesis, and a scored shortlist of their own terrain
Skiers outside BC/Rockies, or those who need raw model data exports
OpenSnow
opensnow.com
The most serious tool on this list, and the only other one you might reasonably pay for. Three tiers: a free account that covers your current location's forecast, historical weather, avalanche forecasts, webcams, and satellite maps; Base at $49.99 USD per year (roughly $68 CAD) for per-location forecasts, the Daily Snow columns, 3D and offline satellite maps, alerts, AI Overviews, and forecasts for any coordinate; and Premium at $99.99 USD per year for 11 to 15 day forecasts, multi-model agreement, super-res radar, and severe weather alerts.
Three things they do better than us, stated plainly. First, PEAKS, their own machine-learning mountain model at 3km resolution, running on every tier including free. They publish accuracy gains of 42% on precipitation and 82% on temperature over standard model output. Snow Doctor reads raw model data and does no downscaling, so on pure forecast sharpness in complex terrain they are ahead and likely to stay there. Second, long range: 15 days out with a model-agreement view, against our 7. Third, and the one that matters most in this province, the British Columbia Daily Snow is written by a local human forecaster through the season. A named meteorologist making a call carries a kind of trust that no generated briefing gets handed to it.
Where it stops for a backcountry planner is scope, not quality. OpenSnow shows Avalanche Canada's danger ratings and then links you out to avalanche.ca for the actual forecast, so the avalanche problems, the aspect and elevation detail, and the forecaster's travel advice live on a different site. There are no field observations anywhere in the product. There is no slope angle layer, no ATES, nothing that knows what the terrain under a point is like. Their AI Overview is a conditions summary for popular ski resorts rather than a snowpack diagnostic. And forecasting an arbitrary coordinate is a paid feature capped at 15 saved custom locations.
The honest way to put it: OpenSnow is a better weather company, and Snow Doctor is a better backcountry decision tool. Those are different products that happen to share a season. If you ski resorts as well as tour, or you want to know whether next weekend is worth booking time off for, Base is good value and pairs with Snow Doctor rather than replacing it.
Resort days, long-range trip planning, sharper mountain weather, and a human forecaster writing about BC
Avalanche problem detail, field observations, terrain-aware planning, or scoring specific slopes
Avalanche Canada
avalanche.ca
The authoritative source for avalanche forecasts in BC and the Canadian Rockies. Professional certified forecasters produce daily bulletins covering 20+ regions, with danger ratings by elevation band, avalanche problem breakdowns (storm slab, wind slab, persistent weak layers, wet avalanche, cornice), and likelihood/consequence charts. Bulletins are often accompanied by detailed travel advice. Avalanche Canada also publishes the ATES terrain ratings that the rest of this list either uses or ignores.
The Mountain Information Network (MIN), hosted on Avalanche Canada, is the primary platform for field observations in Canada. Anyone can submit snowpack obs, avalanche observations, access notes, and weather reports. The collective intelligence from MIN is irreplaceable for understanding what's actually happening on the ground.
Snow Doctor pulls the full Avalanche Canada API: the same danger ratings, avalanche problem detail, and professional bulletin text that lives on avalanche.ca, alongside the MIN observations and the ATES terrain data. You get all the content in one place, with weather context and AI synthesis layered on top. Avalanche Canada is the upstream source; Snow Doctor is the interface.
Reading the source avalanche bulletins directly, or if you're outside Snow Doctor's supported regions
Weather forecasting, multi-zone comparisons, or historical model data
SpotWx
spotwx.com
SpotWx is a point-forecast tool that exposes raw numerical weather model output for any lat/long you drop a pin on. Drop it on a summit and you get hourly data from 20+ models: HRDPS, RDPS, GDPS, GFS, ECMWF, NAM, ICON, and more. Data goes out to 16 days on the longer-range models. No subscription required.
It's the right tool when you need to compare model agreement on a specific storm system, look at wind direction and speed at a precise summit elevation, or dig into the tabular hourly data. Meteorologists and experienced backcountry planners use it regularly. The learning curve is steep, and SpotWx won't tell you what the data means for avalanche conditions.
Snow Doctor added point forecasts since this guide was first published, which narrows the gap for the common case: pin, elevation, forecast, plus the avalanche context SpotWx has never had. What SpotWx still owns is breadth. 20+ models against 5, and 16 days against 7, so when the question is model disagreement on a storm five days out, this is still the place to answer it.
No avalanche data, no field observations, no historical data, and no backcountry-specific visualisation. But for raw model power and breadth of models, it's unmatched at this price point (free).
Model comparison, long-range storm tracking, and raw tabular output for experienced planners
Beginners, avalanche context, field observations, or anyone who needs synthesis rather than raw output
Snow-Forecast.com
snow-forecast.com
Snow-Forecast covers 3,300+ ski resorts worldwide with 6-day forecasts broken into 8-hour periods (AM, PM, night) at three elevation bands: top, mid, and base. It's the global leader for resort-focused snow forecasting and has a large user community submitting eyeball snow depth observations.
The 6-day limit on the free tier (extended forecasts require a paid subscription) is a notable constraint. There is no backcountry zone coverage, no avalanche data, no field observations, and no BC-specific focus. The resort model is well-suited to ski holiday planning but mismatched with backcountry safety decisions. If you are only after BC and Rockies resorts, Snow Doctor now covers 41 of them for free, with the same three-band structure and a longer window.
Resort skiers planning ski holidays, global destinations, and comparing snowfall across multiple resorts
Backcountry terrain decisions, avalanche context, or BC-specific zone planning
Windy
windy.com
Windy's animated global wind and weather map is one of the most visually compelling weather tools ever built. It runs ECMWF and GFS by default, with additional models available. The point-click detail view gives you solid hourly data including wind, precipitation, temperature, freezing level, and cloud cover at a selected location.
Where Windy excels is spatial situational awareness: watching a storm front sweep across a mountain range, comparing wind patterns across ridgelines, or checking a synoptic overview before committing to a destination. The sounding plugin is particularly useful for understanding atmospheric stability.
Windy has no avalanche data, no field observations, and no backcountry-specific interface. It's a general-purpose meteorological tool, not a backcountry planning tool. But as a visual storm-tracking companion to your other tools, it's genuinely excellent.
Visual storm tracking, synoptic overview, and wind pattern analysis across large areas
Avalanche forecasting, field observations, or zone-specific backcountry guidance
Mountain-Forecast.com
mountain-forecast.com
Mountain-Forecast provides simplified summit and mid-mountain forecasts for named peaks worldwide, broken into 3-day and 6-day windows. It's the lowest-barrier entry point for mountain weather: clean, readable, and easy to share with trip partners who aren't used to reading model output.
Coverage is summit-by-summit rather than zone-by-zone, which means it works well for peaks with a name but less well for the unnamed ridges and bowls that define most BC backcountry. That is exactly the gap a point forecast fills, and it is the reason to reach for a pin-drop tool instead when the objective has no name. Like Snow-Forecast, it's optimised for the "should I climb/ski this mountain?" question, not the "what are the specific avalanche conditions on this aspect at this elevation?" question.
Quick sanity-check on named peak weather, easy sharing with non-technical partners
Unnamed BC backcountry terrain, avalanche context, field observations, or serious storm analysis
The Recommended Planning Workflow
You don't need all six tools. Here's a practical decision stack for a BC backcountry day, from a mid-week check-in to the drive in on Saturday morning.
Check the map Monday or Tuesday
Snow Doctor updates daily. A two-minute mid-week look tells you whether the snowpack is building, settling, or cycling, and whether your target region is worth planning for at all before you invest Friday night in it. Danger ratings, precip loads, and freezing level trends are visible across every region at a glance.
Looking further out than a week? That's the one window we don't cover. OpenSnow runs to 15 days, and the BC Daily Snow will tell you whether the pattern is worth taking a Friday off for.
Regional overview: narrow your options
Open Snow Doctor's map and scan the active regions. Each one shows the current avalanche danger rating, new snow for the last 48 hours and the next 3 days, and max freezing level. In two minutes you can eliminate high-danger regions and narrow to two or three candidates worth investigating.
Let My Zones rank your own terrain
If you've saved your regular slopes, this step does the narrowing for you. Every saved zone is scored against the forecast for today, tomorrow, and day three, and ranked. The ATES rating and the day's danger rating set the ceiling, so a complex line on a Considerable day cannot climb the list on the strength of good snow. Tap any one of them for the full breakdown and the heatmap cell it lands in.
Read Doctor's Orders: the full briefing
Doctor's Orders is a full written briefing, not a one-paragraph summary. It covers the weather at three elevations, the snowpack layer by layer (dated, placed by aspect and elevation, and checked against the bulletin, field reports and Snow Doctor's simulated snowpack), the avalanche picture, what people are seeing in the field, where the good snow likely is and why, and what to watch for and test before you head out. The At a glance card adds a confidence score explaining data quality.
Work through the tabs: avy, weather, and field obs
The Avy tab has its own deep-dive AI analysis: the 3-day danger profile, primary avalanche problems with aspect and elevation detail, snowpack architecture and failure points, a spatial read tied to your region's specific elevation range, and a probability versus consequence assessment. The Weather tab shows the past week (temperature trends, precip load, wind history) and seven days forward, in 5 models with 7 interactive charts. The Field Obs tab synthesises MIN reports: what riders are saying about snow quality, what terrain they're avoiding, and what the real-world snowpack consensus is.
Drop a pin on the objective itself
A regional forecast is an average over a large area, and the bowl you're aiming for may sit 600m above the centroid. Tap the map on the actual objective and you get its elevation, aspect, and ATES rating and a point forecast for that coordinate. Save it as a zone for its avalanche and weather views. Useful for the unnamed features that never appear in a summit forecast, and for checking whether the freezing level story changes at your real start elevation.
Check the buried layer against the day it formed: optional
When the bulletin names a persistent weak layer, the useful question is what actually happened the week it was buried. Open a backdated report for that date, up to 30 days back, and read the weather and the bulletin as they stood. It is the difference between "there's a layer down there somewhere" and knowing how much snow is sitting on it and how warm it got afterwards.
SpotWx if there's a complex storm: optional
If you're watching a storm system approach and want to compare how HRDPS, GFS, and ECMWF handle its timing and intensity across 20+ models, open SpotWx for a raw point-by-point comparison at your planned summit elevation. Useful when there's significant model disagreement and the timing matters.
Ask the Doctor if anything's still unclear
After reading Doctor's Orders, Ask the Doctor lets you follow up with specific questions. "What's the wind slab risk on northwest aspects above 1900m this afternoon?" or "Is the freeze level staying above the ridge on Saturday?" It answers with the region's forecast data already in context.
Save the report to your phone
One tap stores the whole report on the device: charts, avalanche detail, field obs, and Doctor's Orders. Out of service it opens read-only from what you saved, stamped with the time it was captured so you always know how old it is. Nothing regenerates offline, which is the honest version of the feature. This one is app-only.
Audio Mode: listen on the way
Switch Snow Doctor to Car Mode and let Doctor's Orders play through your speakers. Chapter navigation, speed controls (1x to 2x), and a dark interface designed for low-light driving. Useful for reviewing your conditions with the whole crew without anyone squinting at a phone.
The Short Version
| Tool | Use it for | Skip it when |
|---|---|---|
| Snow Doctor | Centralised BC/Rockies planning: avy + weather + obs + AI synthesis, scored terrain, point forecasts, backdated reports, offline, car audio | Outside BC/Rockies; raw data exports |
| OpenSnow | Sharper mountain weather (PEAKS), 15-day range, resort days, and a human-written BC forecast | You need avalanche problem detail, field obs, or terrain-aware planning |
| Avalanche Canada | Official danger rating + full professional bulletin + MIN observations (always use this) | Weather modelling |
| SpotWx | Multi-model comparison, storm timing beyond a week, raw tabular output | You need synthesis, avy context, or field obs |
| Snow-Forecast | Planning a resort ski holiday, global resort coverage | Any backcountry trip |
| Windy | Synoptic storm visualisation, wind patterns, atmospheric sounding | Zone-specific BC backcountry planning |
| Mountain-Forecast | Quick summit weather check, easy sharing with non-technical partners | Unnamed BC terrain, anything requiring avy data |
Try the All-in-One Stack
Snow Doctor pulls avalanche forecasts, 5-model weather data, and MIN field observations into one app, with AI synthesis, scored terrain, point forecasts, and audio for the drive in. Free across 123 BC and Rockies regions and 41 resorts.
Open Snow Doctor →