While a ski town famed for its deep powder, Revelstoke is increasingly experiencing hotter and drier summers, wetter winters, and inconsistent snow.
Snowfall fluctuates substantially year by year in the city, but annual snow charts show the snowpack has consistently shrunk by approximately a metre since the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s.
A November 2024 study by University of Waterloo researchers reported that, by 2050, winters here could warm up to a mean -3 C under moderate and high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, due to radiative forcing — an imbalance of solar energy in Earth’s atmosphere that’s exacerbated by human-driven global warming.
Revelstoke currently averages -5 C in winter, but just 26 years from now that could become the average lowest winter temperature, according to the Columbia Basin Climate Source.
In Mount Revelstoke National Park, Parks Canada says temperatures are warming faster than global averages.
If emissions continue to increase at the current rate, the federal agency projects the average annual temperature in the park from the 1960s to ’90s (2.2 C) will rise by four degrees in the next 25 to 55 years. The coldest and hottest days could also climb six degrees, resulting in more rain (an extra 1.25 metres of annual precipitation) and less snow.
Under worst-case emissions scenarios for 2050, winter precipitation in Revelstoke could increase by 22 millimetres, and first frost could push back two weeks later into mid-October, while the last frost arrives two weeks earlier in mid-April.
The ski season on Mount Mackenzie could also lose up to 24 days by mid-century.
READ: Revelstoke Mountain Resort postpones 2025-26 opening
This past March might have been one of the snowiest for Revelstoke Mountain Resort (RMR) in its 19 winter seasons. But warmer and less snow-filled winter seasons visibly impact the length, quality and reputation of Revelstoke’s winter season.
The resort pushed back its 2025-26 opening by a week last December due to a lack of snow at lower elevations, which has also happened in previous years.
On closing day, April 12, RMR advised skiers about a “mixed bag” of snow conditions — some terrain below the Stoke Chair had already melted and riding the gondola down the lower half of the mountain was “highly recommended.”
Joseph Shea, a professor in the University of Northern British Columbia’s environment faculty who researches snow levels around the Columbia River, says Revelstoke benefits in winter from its elevation and a strong snowpack at higher levels.
But “at lower elevations you’re going to be seeing more precipitation falling as rain than snow,” he told Black Press Media, while mid-elevations could see more and faster runoff from snowmelt in winter.
For recreationists, Shea said the changing snowpack conditions in the Columbia Mountains open an important dialogue about whether Revelstoke’s identity as a ski town will change, too.
“Skiers and sledders, all of these people, they love winter, so it’s the perfect place to start that conversation,” he said.
Resorts unprepared for climate
The 2024 study found that Canadian ski tourism destinations, including Revelstoke, face increasing climate risks, “yet are not currently prepared to adapt to climate change or a decarbonized future.”
The researchers observed that ski seasons are shortening, winter conditions are becoming more variable, and resorts are increasingly relying on snow-making for the hill, despite their growing investment in mountain tourism.
Shea said operators such as Lake Louise Ski Resort prefer manufacturing snow to maintain their ski runs, while Whistler Blackcomb is embracing less snow by leaning more into its five-month-long bike season.
READ: Revelstoke’s Stoke Chair outage raises questions about resort lift capacity
The provincial government “recognizes that climate change is contributing to more variable winters and lower snowpack in many parts of B.C., with direct implications for ski resorts,” the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport said in a statement to Black Press Media.
“Revelstoke is addressing climate impacts through long-term adaptation that shifts to a four-season resort economy through investments in trails, events, and year-round infrastructure and experiences.”
The ministry added that B.C.’s Resort Municipality Initiative aims to help tourism-based communities invest in projects that diversify the economy, extend visitor seasons, and build resilience to changing conditions and reduced snowpack.
According to Kristen Learned of Destination BC, the BC Tourism Climate Resiliency Initiative gave seven Revelstoke businesses support for sustainability adaptation planning. Four local organizations also received up to $15,000 each for implementing climate resiliency projects, while others joined workshops on sustainable tourism development.
Last winter, Tourism Revelstoke surveyed the community about using the resort shuttle service for skiing at RMR, and incentivized more public transit and fewer vehicle emissions by handing out 400 to 500 free shuttle passes during the Natural Selection Tour.
All-season transition ‘already happening’
Shea reassured that Revelstoke will remain a winter resort for the foreseeable future.
But the transition to more all-season conditions “is already happening,” he said, and may especially shift recreation into Revelstoke’s fall shoulder season.
To extend winter seasons with less snow, he suggested RMR could let visitors ski the upper mountain but advise them to ride Revelation Gondola down from Mid-Station over lower areas that melt sooner or get snow later, as it did on April 12.
RMR has been implementing snow-making for lower elevations since 2011, but has also invested in new summer offerings such as the Highline viewing deck and suspension bridge, and the Cabot Revelstoke Golf Course, slated to open in 2027. It opens for mountain biking from June to September, but closes for about four months total in the shoulder seasons, making it a two-season resort.
READ: 155-room lodge, $7.6M units unveiled for luxury Revelstoke golf course
RMR did not answer Black Press Media’s questions about the impacts of extreme weather on its winter operations, and whether it plans to shift more to summer and all-season offerings for visitors.
Basecamp Resorts, which operates multiple accommodations in Revelstoke, has joined a Protect Our Winters (POW) Canada campaign to cherish and protect the colder and snowier months of the year.
“We’re already seeing shifts in weather patterns across our destinations, including in Revelstoke, where winter plays a defining role in the guest experience,” Kate MacLeod, marketing coordinator for Basecamp, said in a statement.
“Variability in snowfall and changing conditions are not only influencing how and when people travel, but also impacting our ability to get out and enjoy the winter sports and environments that draw us here in the first place.”
She said that joining the POW campaign is a responsibility toward helping protect the places guests come to enjoy and support sustainable long-term tourism. For Basecamp, this will mean reducing its own operational footprint through energy, water, and waste initiatives, while supporting a push for larger-scale climate solutions.
“Revelstoke is my happy place and a big part of why this matters to me,” Basecamp founder and CEO Sky Mitchell added. “Partnering with POW allows us to be part of the solution, supporting both immediate action and long-term change to help ensure these places can be enjoyed for generations to come.”
An important dialogue for snow-lovers
Kate Hale, assistant professor of hydrology in the University of British Columbia’s geography department, visited Rogers Pass in March to gather snowpack data.
She observed that the Columbia Mountains still have colder, drier, lighter, and fluffier snow than elsewhere in the province.
Around B.C., “we are quite confident that the snowpack is declining,” she said, but “there are regional and climatological variables that make snow very hard to assess over space and time.”
READ: Rogers Pass ski season ends with 8.8K permits issued, near-record snow
Rogers Pass, for instance, recorded its second-snowiest December on record at the Mount Fidelity weather station (425 centimetres), Parks Canada shared.
For mountain towns such as Revelstoke, however, long-term changes to snowpack and the timing of its melt could impact not just winter recreation, but also when water is readily available in the drier months, Hale said.
Going forward, she said it will be valuable to hear from RMR visitors about the snow quality they’re experiencing on the ski hill, to better understand Revelstoke’s snowpack on a year-by-year basis and how it compares to past decades.
“It’s going to be the longer-term trend that informs us, not the weekly weather,” Hale concluded. “We’re still at a place where the future of snow isn’t dire. There’s still hope for the snow community.”