Weather
Warm spring weather holds through Tuesday before a windy midweek front brings a quick shot of rain and high-elevation snow, mainly for north Idaho and northwest Montana. Most ski areas farther south and east stay largely dry through Thursday with only spotty light snow, then the whole region trends back toward mild, mostly dry spring skiing for the weekend. Another system may arrive around the middle of next week, but that part of the forecast is still much less settled.
Confidence is highest from Tuesday, March 24, through Thursday morning, March 26, and the individual models are fairly well aligned on the timing of a warm front Tuesday followed by a colder frontal passage Wednesday into early Thursday. They converge on the best precipitation signal from Schweitzer to Whitefish, while central and southern Idaho plus the Tetons stay mostly dry and southwest Montana only scrapes out a dusting. Snow levels climb to roughly 6,500 to 7,500 feet in the wetter northern ranges during the warm part of the storm, so early snow comes in dense with SLRs mostly around 4 to 8. As colder air arrives late Wednesday, snow levels crash toward 3,000 to 5,000 feet and snow quality improves into a more moderate to locally lighter 10 to 15 range, but totals still look minor, generally just 1″-2″ near Schweitzer and Whitefish with only a dusting to 1″ on a few higher southwest Montana peaks. Wind is another common signal, with exposed gusts in the 30 to 50 mph range and some higher ridgeline gusts Wednesday, so expect at least intermittent lift-impacting wind even where snowfall stays light.
Once the front clears, the individual models quickly come back together on a ridge rebuilding from Friday through Sunday. That favors dry weather, lighter wind, and temperatures running above normal again, with enough overnight cooling for at least some refreeze at upper elevations and increasingly soft snow by midday and afternoon. This looks more like a spring-surface forecast than a powder cycle: firmer starts where skies clear overnight, then corn and softening groomers on sunnier aspects, with lower-elevation terrain turning slushier fastest. Aside from a few leftover Thursday morning flakes in the northern mountains, new snow is not a major part of the weekend picture.
Forecast confidence drops quickly after Monday, March 30, as the next trough approaches, and the individual models diverge on timing, intensity, snow levels, and wind response. The common idea is a turn back toward unsettled weather around Tuesday night, March 31, through Thursday, April 2, but solutions range from a modest refresh to a more organized multi-resort storm. A conservative read from the current spread is enough potential for roughly 4″-10″ at many higher-elevation ski areas and isolated 10″-18″ totals if the wetter solutions verify, with the best odds currently in northwest Montana, north Idaho, southwest Montana, and the Tetons. Snow quality in that period would likely start on the denser side and improve if colder air arrives deeper into the storm, but it is too early to get more specific than that.
Resort Forecast Totals (Tue Mar 24 Thu Mar 26)
- Schweitzer – 1″-2″
- Whitefish Mountain – 1″-2″
- Bridger Bowl – 0″-1″
- Big Sky – 0″
- Brundage – 0″
- Jackson Hole – 0″
- Sun Valley – 0″
- Tamarack – 0″
- Bogus Basin – 0″
- Grand Targhee – 0″
