Weather
A mostly quiet start gives way to the best skiing weather from Tuesday afternoon through Thursday morning, when a modest but useful storm drops moderate snow across most British Columbia and Alberta resorts. The most reliable totals cluster around 15 centimeters at Banff Sunshine, Big White, RED Mountain, and Revelstoke, with Banff Sunshine favored to push closer to 20 centimeters. Snow levels fall steadily during the storm, so the Alberta parks trend colder and lighter than the lower BC hills, while Friday into Saturday looks quieter before a much less certain reload tries to develop late Sunday into Tuesday. Big White and RED Mountain may do well on paper, but both are closed, so the practical midweek focus stays on Banff Sunshine, Lake Louise, Revelstoke, and Kicking Horse.
Sunday night through Monday stays mostly dry, and the guidance is well aligned on that quieter start with only spotty nuisance snow showers and no meaningful accumulation for most areas. Timing agreement tightens again for the main wave, with snow spreading into BC first on Tuesday and reaching the Alberta resorts Tuesday evening, then peaking Tuesday night into Wednesday. Amounts still show moderate spread, but the shared signal is for a solid refresh rather than a major dump. Banff Sunshine is the best bet for roughly 15 centimeters, Lake Louise, Revelstoke, and Kicking Horse look close to a dozen centimeters, and Mount Norquay lags near 7 centimeters. Snow-level guidance is reasonably well clustered during the heart of the storm, generally near 100 to 1,500 meters and lowest in Alberta, so coverage falls mostly as snow at the higher open resorts.
Snow quality should improve as the storm matures, especially in Alberta where SLRs rise into the 9-20 range at Lake Louise and Banff Sunshine and temperatures stay mostly below freezing. Kicking Horse and Revelstoke look denser overall, with SLRs more often in the 5-14 range and occasional temperatures nudging just above 0 C on the lower mountain, so expect heavier snow there outside the upper elevations. Wind impacts are a secondary concern at the open resorts, but the guidance does diverge on how rough exposed ridges get, with the stronger solutions producing gusts in the 40-60 km/h range around Banff Sunshine and higher southern BC terrain during Wednesday. Most guidance then converges on a quieter Thursday afternoon through Saturday, with only a few stray centimeters left behind.
Confidence is strongest from Tuesday afternoon, April 14, through Thursday morning, April 16, and it drops off quickly after that as the guidance splits on the next Pacific wave. The broader late-Sunday through Tuesday signal still favors another round of precipitation, but the spread is wide on both coverage and snow levels. The drier camp keeps much of British Columbia/Alberta nearly dry, while the snowier solutions bring another moderate shot to the higher Alberta terrain and less to most BC resorts. If that later system materializes, it also looks warmer and denser, with snow levels often running near 1,300 to 2,100 meters, so lower elevations would be much more mixed than the midweek storm.
Resort Forecast Totals (Tue Apr 14 – Thu Apr 16)
- Banff Sunshine – 13-20 cm
- Big White – 13-19 cm
- RED Mountain – 12-17 cm
- Revelstoke – 11-15 cm
- Lake Louise – 10-15 cm
- Kicking Horse – 9-14 cm
- Mount Norquay – 6-9 cm
