Atmospheric models
Open-Meteo NWP
Global numerical weather prediction model. Provides hourly temperature, wind, snowfall, humidity, and cloud cover forecasts for every zone. Updated every hour. Free and open.
openmeteo.com · updated hourly
Environment Canada HRDPS
High Resolution Deterministic Prediction System — Canada's best mountain weather model at 2.5km grid spacing. Significantly more accurate than global models for BC terrain. We blend HRDPS with Open-Meteo, weighting HRDPS more heavily for the first 48 hours.
weather.gc.ca · updated every 6h
Ground truth observations
MSC Datamart radar
Environment Canada's weather radar network. Tells us what's actually precipitating right now — and critically, whether it's rain or snow. When radar contradicts the model forecast we flag lower confidence and adjust the score.
dd.weather.gc.ca · updated every 10 min
BC RFC Automated Snow & Weather Stations
22 physical snow pillow stations operated by the BC River Forecast Centre across BC riding zones. Measures actual snow depth, snow water equivalent, air temperature, and cumulative precipitation on the ground — not model output. Where a station is within range of a zone, we show its measured values directly and use them to bias-correct the model.
env.gov.bc.ca · updated every 6h
Safety & access
Avalanche Canada
Point-based avalanche forecasts for every riding zone using the official Avalanche Canada API. We use the treeline danger rating as the primary avalanche input to the rider score. A rating of 4 (High) or 5 (Extreme) results in an automatic AVOID classification regardless of weather conditions.
Environment Canada weather alerts
Battleboard RSS feeds for all BC mountain forecast regions. Snowfall warnings, wind warnings, blizzard watches, and extreme cold alerts are ingested and mapped to riding zones.
weather.gc.ca · updated as issued
DriveBC road events
All active road events in BC via the Open511 API — closures, winter conditions advisories, construction, and incidents. Events within 80km of a zone are mapped to that zone and shown in the access insight card.
drivebc.ca · updated hourly
BC Wildfire Service perimeters
Active fire perimeters published by the BC Wildfire Service. Primarily relevant May–November. Any active fire within 25km of a zone's access corridor triggers an access flag.
openmaps.gov.bc.ca · updated every 15 min
Terrain intelligence
Digital elevation model
High-resolution terrain data for BC. Used to compute lapse-rate temperature correction (temperature drops ~6.5°C per 1000m elevation gain) so forecasts reflect conditions at your actual riding elevation, not the valley floor where weather stations sit.
SRTM / CanELEV
NOAA solar position algorithm
Accurate solar elevation and azimuth calculations for every zone, every hour. Used to compute which aspects are receiving direct sunlight, how intense that loading is, and when sun-exposed terrain will begin to soften. Accurate to within 0.01° for dates between 1950 and 2050.
gml.noaa.gov · computed locally
Zone terrain profiles
Hand-tuned terrain profiles for 50+ BC riding zones covering slope aspects and area fractions, elevation band, tree coverage, wind exposure rating, coastal moisture influence, cold air pooling tendency, and treeline elevation. These profiles are what make solar loading, wind transport, and melt risk calculations zone-specific rather than generic.
SledSafe internal · built for BC backcountry
Proprietary models
Wind Transport Index
Computes cumulative wind slab loading over the past 48 hours by combining wind speed, new snowfall, and zone wind exposure. Identifies which aspects are likely loaded with hard slab even after a storm ends and winds drop. Based on SAFRAN-style transport indexing used in European avalanche forecasting.
SledSafe · computed every 30 min
Storm phase classifier
Identifies where in the storm cycle a zone currently sits: Pre-Storm, Storm Peak, Settling, Consolidating, Clear & Cold, or Warming. Storm phase drives the conditions headline and the best riding window recommendation. A consolidating phase 48h after a storm typically means the best powder conditions.
SledSafe · computed every 30 min
Aspect-aware melt risk model
Combines solar loading, air temperature, cloud cover, and humidity to estimate snow surface melt risk hour by hour. When melt risk crosses 0.60 on sun-exposed terrain, the hourly slot is labelled SOFTENING. This is what catches the classic BC scenario: prime powder in the morning, wet heavy junk by 2pm.
SledSafe · updated hourly
Temperature inversion detection
Uses pressure-level temperature profiles from Environment Canada to detect when a temperature inversion is present — a layer where temperature increases with altitude instead of decreasing. Common in BC valleys in winter. When your riding zone is above the inversion base it may be significantly warmer than the valley forecast suggests, affecting surface conditions.
SledSafe · computed every 6h
Bias correction
Over time, we compare model forecasts against actual station measurements for zones with nearby BC RFC stations. Systematic errors — zones where Open-Meteo consistently runs 2°C warm, or underestimates snowfall — are corrected automatically. Improves with every season of data.
SledSafe · retrained nightly