When Snow Data Gets Buried: A Critique of Whistler’s Snow History Visualization

By a snowboarder & data-visualization practitioner — I visit Whistler every year and love clean charts.

Every year I try to lock in lodging early for Whistler to catch lower prices — but the question that always matters is the same: will there be enough snow for my trip? I rely on historical snow data to decide. Recently I visited SNO’s Whistler snow history page and while the underlying data looks useful, the visualization itself makes the story harder to read than it needs to be. This post focuses specifically on color choice — a seemingly small design decision that has outsized effects on clarity and trust.

The palette problem

The SNO charts attempt to show multiple measures — snowfall, base depth, averages — often within the same plot. The visuals use several shades of the same hue (blue), which creates three problems:

  1. Low distinction: similar blues for different measures force viewers to rely on legends or hover states instead of perceiving the data at a glance.
  2. Poor contrast: thin lines and light bars against a pale background reduce legibility, especially on mobile or in bright daylight (which, ironically, is when many skiers check reports).
  3. Accessibility risks: people with color-vision deficiencies will struggle to separate related shades. Around 8% of men are color-deficient, so this isn’t a niche concern.
Reminder: color is not decoration — it encodes meaning. When similar colors represent different metrics, the visual encoding breaks down.

How better color choices could help

Here’s a simple, practical palette approach that improves clarity while keeping a cool, ‘snowy’ aesthetic:

Base depth
Deep blue — anchors the plot as the long-term metric
New snowfall
White/very light gray — evokes fresh snow and separates from the base
Seasonal averages / anomalies
Contrasting warm color — draws attention to deviations
Accessibility tips
  • Use high-contrast pairings for adjacent layers (e.g., dark blue + white).
  • Maintain consistent mapping across views (snowfall = same color everywhere).
  • Add non-color encodings (patterned bars, different line styles) for when color alone is ambiguous.

Concrete examples (what to change right now)

If you’re updating the SNO Whistler page, here are three targeted edits that will improve comprehension quickly:

  1. Assign distinct hues to core metrics: deep blue for base, white/light-gray for new snowfall, and an accent (orange or teal) for averages/anomalies.
  2. Increase stroke width and marker sizes for line charts so that overlapping series remain legible at small sizes.
  3. Include accessible legends and textual summaries (e.g., a short sentence: “By Dec 4, median base depth is X cm — recent decades show Y trend”).

Why this matters

People don’t consult snow-history pages for aesthetics — they consult them to make travel decisions that cost real money. A visualization that hides distinctions with near-identical hues isn’t neutral: it increases uncertainty and forces additional work on the user (cross-checking other sources, squinting, or misreading trends).

As a frequent Whistler visitor and someone who love building charts , I want these sites to earn our trust. Strong, accessible color choices are low-effort, high-impact changes.
Source: I reviewed the SNO Whistler snow history page and wrote this critique focusing on color and clarity. If you’d like, I can produce a redesigned mockup of one of the site’s charts — complete with an accessible palette and annotated notes for implementation.