Weather
A light Monday pulse and a warmer Tuesday are followed by a better Wednesday through Friday refresh, with the steadiest snow focused on southwest Idaho and southwest Montana before confidence drops again late weekend into next week. Within the highest-confidence period, most resorts are on track for 3″-9″, while the favored spots push closer to 8″-13″.
Monday, March 2 into early Tuesday stays relatively minor, and model guidance is well converged on light coverage and high snow levels. During the Monday wave, snow levels sit mostly near 6,500-7,500 feet, so accumulation is concentrated on upper elevations with generally 0″-2″ and only isolated higher-mountain pockets near 2″-4″. Snow quality in this first pulse is mostly dense, with SLRs commonly in the 7-10 range and occasional lower values in warmer pockets. Tuesday trends milder and drier for most mountains, with daytime temperatures generally rebounding into the 30s and low 40s, then clouds and precipitation coverage increase again by Wednesday as the next system approaches.
Confidence is highest from Wednesday afternoon through Friday night as a stronger frontal cycle moves through the range. Guidance is tightly clustered on timing and snow-level evolution, with levels starting near 5,500-6,500 feet Wednesday, then dropping toward 3,500-4,500 feet by Thursday into Friday, and guidance also converges on a gusty period during frontal passage, but intensity and exact resort-to-resort snowfall distribution still diverge some after the front moves through. For snowfall, most mountains look set for about 3″-8″ in this stretch, while favored terrain in southwest Idaho and southwest Montana can reach 8″-13″. Snow starts denser Wednesday with SLRs mainly 7-10, then improves to more moderate quality Thursday and Friday with many periods in the 10-14 range and occasional lighter bursts above that. Winds are a real ski factor, with frequent ridge gusts around 25-40 mph and local peaks near 50 mph during the strongest push.
From Saturday into early next week, confidence drops and the forecast becomes more scenario-dependent even though the broader pattern still supports periodic mountain snow. Model guidance diverges on timing, intensity, snow levels, and wind magnitude for Sunday night through Wednesday, so this part of the outlook is best treated as potential rather than a firm storm call. The conservative signal is for scattered lighter snow Saturday, then a better chance of another round from late Sunday into midweek, with a broad outcome of about 4″-16″ in favored northern and higher terrain and roughly 1″-6″ farther south in Idaho. Snow levels in that later window could range from near valley floors in colder scenarios to around 6,000 feet in milder ones, and exposed ridges may turn quite windy again, with potential gusts in the 35-55 mph range.
Resort Forecast Totals (Mon Mar 02 – Sat Mar 07)
- Big Sky – 8″-13″
- Brundage – 7″-11″
- Bogus Basin – 6″-9″
- Grand Targhee – 6″-8″
- Tamarack – 5″-8″
- Schweitzer – 4″-7″
- Bridger Bowl – 4″-6″
- Jackson Hole – 3″-4″
- Whitefish Mountain – 3″-4″
- Sun Valley – 3″-4″
