What Counts as a Powder Day? We Asked More Than 1,000 Skiers

Welcome to another weekly result from POWDER’s Department of Polls and Skier Opinion. The subject this week? Powder days. Or, more accurately, what counts as a powder day. 

Depending on where you live and ski, the amount of snow that is cause for celebration—and powder panic—might vary. Our friends who ski at Alta probably don’t get too excited when three inches fall overnight. They’re used to some of the biggest dumps on the planet, after all. The story, we posited, might be different in places that see less of the natural stuff.

So, our scientists went on a new adventure, this time in pursuit of a consensus. And boy, did we find one. As it would turn out, among most of the skiers we polled, one answer reigns supreme. 

Check out the poll results below. 

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How Much New Snow Counts as A Powder Day? Poll Results

Poll Highlights

• Total Votes: 1,196
• Number of Votes on Instagram: 966
• Number of Votes on Website: 230
• Most Popular Powder Day Total: 6-11 Inches (904 votes, 76% of voters)
• Least Popular Powder Day Total: Trace-1 Inch (19 votes, 2% of voters)
• Other results:
  2-5 Inches: 148 votes, 12% of voters 12+ Inches: 124 votes, 10% of voters

Poll Observations

• Nuance, nuance, nuance. As numerous skiers pointed out on our social post, geography and snow quality make a big difference in what qualifies as a powder day. Eight feet of wacky, wet snow, in the end, might be a disappointment. A few inches of light stuff on a soft surface, meanwhile, can go a long way. Similarly, resorts known for their deep snow need larger storm totals to get the “powder day” alarm bells ringing.
• That said, we found a clear winner. A vast majority of respondents said between 6 and 11 inches is where the powder day category begins. That’s a relatively wide range, which makes sense. Six inches for the drier spots. Eleven inches for the jaded skiers used to fluff.
• Some skiers have higher standards. Ten percent of them answered 12 inches or more. One social media commenter even said they don’t get out of bed unless the snow totals read two feet. We wish they said where their local mountain is, because with that attitude, they must be rolling in it. 
• Another commenter took a bold stance, arguing that wind buff is better than blower. Are they on to something? Maybe. We might run a poll to find out. But we think it’s unlikely that powder snow—the largely undisputed holy grail of skiing—could be dethroned or have any significant competitors. 

What We Could’ve Done Better

• Was this the wrong question? On our website, just 230 skiers chimed in, a significant drop from last week. While we enjoyed the results, the powder day query may have lacked the pizzazz of our previous polls or been as debatable. A powder day’s a powder day, you know? Chairlift safety bars, meanwhile, got people amped up. 
• We'll spare you the exact gory, numerical details, but gathering data on Instagram presented a problem. Apparently, the app sometimes rounds up the percentages we use to calculate the exact number of votes, which threw everything off. A very small number of votes, then, didn't land where they should. That hardly impacted the results, though. You can see the uncombined results from web and social here and here, respectively.

About the POWDER Weekly Poll

We launch our weekly polls at 3 p.m. EST every Monday. They remain open until 12:00 p.m. EST that Friday, with the results dropping on Sunday at 9 a.m. EST (schedule changes around holidays are possible). You can participate and see the results right here on our website or by visiting our Instagram page.