Snow Report – Ski Mountain Conditions Plugin for WordPress

Posted on September 28, 2010

Denver Snow

Get the latest ski/snowboarding conditions from your favorite area or mountain using the Snow Report WordPress plugin.

The plugin uses the OnTheSnow.com website’s data feeds that provide the most accurate, up to date information available.

The Snow Report plugin is perfect for:

  • any blog owner who yearns to be on the mountain;
  • a tourism-related website for a ski-friendly state, country, or area (like Colorado);
  • a snow removal website that wants to integrate a helpful feature onto their site;
  • a ski area that wishes to show its latest stats

Need support?

Please check the plugin page first to see if your questions are answered there. If not, drop a line using the

This entry was posted in Plugins and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
  • http://www.americanclothingexperiment.org Anne

    Hi, I downloaded your plug in, what a great idea, but I am wondering if there is a way to have it be a searchable option for our members, like they could type in their state and it would go there? Or I would just have to download it 50 times, and that seems ridiculous to me! Any suggestions? Thank you, Anne

    • http://www.katzwebservices.com Zack Katz

      I hadn’t planned on something like that; it would be much more in-depth than the plugin is now.

      You could set up something in your theme’s page template like this:

      do_shortcode('[snow_report location="'.get_post_meta($post->ID, 'location', true).'"]');

      Then for each location, you could add a custom field named ‘location’ and have the state’s name.

      Alternatively, you could point people to the source of the data: http://www.onthesnow.com.

  • ec

    hi,
    for Italy there is only one place… is it possible? do the others ski resort have to register somewhere? how to fetch the data?
    grazie mille!

    • http://www.katzwebservices.com Zack Katz

      @ec: The information is from http://www.onthesnow.com, so it should have all of the resorts listed here: http://www.onthesnow.com/italy/skireport.html There may be only one because you may have entered a specific resort into the “Specific Mountain” setting… If so, remove that.

      Also, try this for me: add into your content [snow_report location="Italy" mountain=""] – let me know if that works.

  • http://www.summitsnowreport.com Nick

    Want to first thank you for this plugin. I am having a little trouble though. First if I have a page for each resort can I show the report for just that resort on its own page?

    Also after installing and testing the shortcode I am getting this error.

    Warning: Missing argument 1 for snow_report::av(), called in /home/content/61/6669961/html/wp-content/plugins/snow-report/snow-report.php on line 517 and defined in /home/content/61/6669961/html/wp-content/plugins/snow-report/snow-report.php on line 261

    • http://www.katzwebservices.com Zack Katz

      @Nick: I just released version 1.1.2, which will fix that error. Thank you for reporting it.

      In order to show a specific mountain, you can use the shortcode. On each resort page, you can use [snow_report location="Resort State" mountain="Resort Name as Shown in Table"]

      That should show only that resort’s listing. Let me know how it goes.

      • http://www.summitsnowreport.com Nick

        Okay so I got the single reports to display on 4 of the pages I need them on. However, when I try to display it for the remaining three resorts it lists every resort in Colorado instead of just that one resort.

  • http://www.summitsnowreport.com Nick

    Sorry I just thought of another question. How do I change the avantlink info for liftopia from your account to mine?

  • http://www.otadesigns.com Hawaii Web Design

    Cool plugin. I wish we had snow in Hawaii though lol

  • http://www.fivestarapart.com Chris

    This looks to be a great plug-in that I’d like to use when I add a WordPress blog to my site shortly, however, is there any chance that it can support Bulgaria, Borovets in particular? It appears ‘onthesnow.com’ website, so would be great if it could be included?

  • http://slopesaint.com Andy

    Hey Zack..great plugin. Is there a way to show multiple states like Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, etc?

    A

  • http://www.alpineguru.com Oli

    This looks to be a very useful plugin – will have a play now and see how/if we can use it.

  • http://www.northeastsurfing.com Ronnie

    I cover the northeast, and this plug in is sick, I love it. I need to be able to give snow reports for the northeast, USA states, is there a way to add a few states? Thanks great job, Ronnie.

  • http://www.northeastsurfing.com Ronnie

    Be nice to have regions. Like Mid west, northeast, west coast, etc. Ever thought about a surf report plugin? Using like surfline.com? Great work.

  • http://www.jhsnowboarder.com Kristen

    Is it possible to have more than one specific mountain display?

    For example, I want to do Wyoming, but instead of the 7 resorts that come up, I only want to do 3 specific ones. Jackson Hole, Snow King, and Grand Targhee.

    Thank you!

  • http://www.QuebecCity.ca Geoff

    Using ShortCode to display Snow Report for Quebec.

    Two Questions:

    1) Any way to open Link to Buy Tickets in New Target (without manually updating plugin code)

    2) measurement=”cm” does not work. Results always show inches

    See sample at http://www.QuebecCity.ca/ (Snow Reports)

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      Version 1.2.1 fixes the measurement issue. Sorry about that.

  • MTECH

    Zack, thanks for the great plugin. We are a website design firm in Pagosa Springs, CO and just found your plugin. We have several clients that would like to use this, but only show a particular mountain in Colorado. How do we do this? I have tried inserting for example “Wolf Creek” into the short code you provided, but it will not work. Here’s the shortcode I have inserted into the HTML code of one of my Word Press pages:
    [snow_report location="Colorado" mountain="Wolf Creek" caption="Snow Reports for Ski Mountains in Colorado" align="left" show_tickets="yes" ticket_text="%%resort%% lift tickets" cache_results="no" columns="open,base,tickets"]

    Thanks again for the great plugin!

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      Thanks for bringing this to my attention – it turns out that not all names equal their web address on the OnTheSnow.com website…it’s not “wolf-creek”; it’s “wolf-creek-ski-area”.

      So to have it work, use mountain="Wolf Creek Ski Area" … Sorry for that!

  • Info

    Hi,
    I want to change the table css using the class=”css_table_class” but where do I put the code to modify the css?

    Cheers,
    James Green.
    London, UK

  • Sibyl

    Hi Zack,
    I have the plugin installed—didn’t get any error messages. I’ve put the shortcode into a text widget and it pretty much does nothing. Am I missing something?

    • Sibyl

      More details: looking at the source code I’m getting the following error:
      “Snow Report Error : Error reading XML file at http://www.onthesnow.com/washington/snow.rss and “I spoke with my host and they don’t block plugins (I have your WP Wunderground plugin working perfectly on the same site) so it doesn’t seem like that’s the problem. When I type the feed URL directly into my browser I can see it, so I know OnTheSnow.com is not down.Any suggestions?

  • William Murrell

    Hello –

    a domain name http://www.bostonsnowman.com is for sale.  Reasonably price but it will be over a thousand for the name, then the builder can do anything they want.

    http://www.bostonsnowman.com
    Boston, MA

  • Dave

    Zach,

    Is it possible to display only 3 specific resorts. For example I just want Vail Beaver Creek and Breckenridge

  • Corby_b

    Hi Zach,

    Do you know if there is a way to include your short code in a dropdown, where the user can select the resort and return only that resosrt? 

    Thanks for creating the tool!

    Corby

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      Not sure at the moment how that would work, sorry.…

  • http://twitter.com/richstaats Rich Staats

    Hey has anyone noticed this plugin just stop working?  the plugin is activated, and the shortcode is in fact present and correctly displayed?  Any thoughts on how to debug?

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      Look at the source code on the page and see if there’s an error in html comments.

      • http://twitter.com/richstaats Rich Staats

        yup: 

        Snow Report Error : Error reading XML file at http://www.onthesnow.com/colorado/snow.rss and

        i’m guessing this is a problem with onthesnow?

        Speaking which, you headed to Vail tomorrow?

  • http://twitter.com/richstaats Rich Staats

    So the error is still there, a few days later, but if i follow the url to the RSS feeds i am seeing the XML file…it seems to be fine.  Is it possible that it is an error on my end?

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      That sounds like an error with the plugin. I’ll check it out. Thanks for following up.

  • Rebekah

    I have same question as Kristen below…

    Is it possible to have more than one specific mountain display?

    For
    example, I want to do Lake Tahoe, California, but instead of the 20 resorts that come
    up, I only want to do 10 specific ones. Squaw Valley, Alpine Meadows, Northstar, etc. Is this possible?

    Thank you!

  • Anonymous

    Is it possible to have the liftticket link through Liftopia/Avantlink go to our account so that we can earn commissions on tickets sold?

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      Not without editing the plugin.

      • Jeff

        I am assuming that this is the part of the plugin I should edit to get credit from Avantlink with my affiliate ID. Can you tell me specifically what to update?
        return ‘http://www.avantlink.com/click.php?tt=cl&mi=10065&pw=35803&ctc=plugin&url=’.urlencode($url);
        } else
        return ”;

  • Anonymous

    Zack, sounds good appreciate the prompt reply.  Last but not least I have added the plugin to our homepage – http://www.mtnweekly.com and wondering how to remove the open status and surface conditions from the sidebar widget area.  I am using the following code:

    [snow_report location="Washington" mountain="Mt. Baker"]

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      In the Snow Report plugin settings, uncheck the “Open Stats” and “Surface Conditions” boxes. It should then be disabled in your shortcodes by default.

  • http://www.facebook.com/hector.bernabeu.torregrosa Héctor Bernabeu

    Hi.

    First, congratulations on your Snow Report plugin. I have a website about snowboarding and  and I was interested in installing it, but I see the Spanish ski resorts are not available.

    Have thought that at some point may appear in your application.

    a greeting

  • Mark

    Is it possible to setup the Plugin to show all of Colorado and all of Utah?

  • Jon_st80

    Hi,
    fantastic plugin, it is exactly what I´m looking for! 
    Sadly is Sweden missing
    in places. It is supported in Onthesnow website. Any chance that you can add Sweden so it
    works in the plugin? I be very very happy if so! 

    Thanks

    Nicklas
    Stockholm

  • brandontfc101

    Zach, GREAT PLUGIN! Easy to use, thats what I like. Quick question. onthesnow.com has a 24 hour snowfall report. I am fairly confident in my abilities as a coder to include this in the plugin if you can point me to the line of code that draws the 48 hour report. Or is this a feature that im over looking somewhere?

    Thanks in advance!

  • bigbear238

    Is this pluging still working?

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      Should be!

  • http://www.facebook.com/angele.foisy Angele Foisy

    I installed your plugin last week and configured it for Quebec and it was outputting beautifully. Since yesterday the output it blank. Tested on 2 different WP sites, with different themes, blank output. Tried Quebec and Ontario, still no output. Tried IE 9.0 and Firefox, still no output.
    Did something happen for it to stop working?
    http://www.clubsaski.com/fr/conditions-de-ski/
    I used the default [snow_report] shortcode.

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      Interesting. Thanks for reporting – I’ll look into it.

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      OnTheSnow.com has stopped providing RSS feeds (how the plugin gets its data). This may be temporary or it may be permanent. I’ve been in touch with them and will let you know what the deal is when I find out.

  • Jack

    Howdy, is the plugin still functional, or is the website blocking wordpress sites from using it?

  • Sean

    Hi Zack. Love your plugin and want to use it. Have you resolved the issue with OnTheSnow sending you feeds? Is or will your plugin be functioning and regularly updating again, and when?

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      It was back up a while ago. Yes, it works again.

  • Jeff

    Snow Report WordPress plugin NOT UPDATING????

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      Could you be more specific?

      • jeff

        I have it set up on my site http://www.rmrm.net and it is not updating the snow fall or the fact that some mountain in Colorado are open. Says they are closed and 0″ snow fall??

      • jeff

        I have the pulin on my site http://www.rmrm.net and it is not reporting snow fall or the fact that mountains are open in colorado??

  • Jeff

    It is not reporting/updating???

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      Try removing the space after “Black Mountain” in the shortcode.

      • Pepin

        Hi Zack, Thanks for replying. I tired that now my new code is like below[snow_report location="New Hampshire" mountain="Black Mountain"
        caption="Snow Conditions for Black Mountain in Jackson New Hampshire"
        show_tickets="yes" ticket_text="%%resort%% lift tickets" ]

        Still the TICKETS link does not show up

        Thanks for your help

        • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

          Okay, I’m going to look into fixing these issues next week. Thanks for trying, Pepin!

  • pepin

    Nice Plugin Zack. But I am having an Issue, the mountain we are trying to display in Black Mountain located in New Hampshire USA. I am using the shortcode to display in the sidebar and want to display a link to the tickets too.

    If I put the mountain name as Black Mountain, the ticket link does not display but If I remove the mountain name and just use the location, it displays all the mountains in New Hampshire along with the Ticket links

    How can I do this JUST for Black Mountain.

    Case1) does not work

    [snow_report location="New Hampshire" mountain="Black Mountain " caption="Snow Conditions for Black Mountain in Jackson New Hampshire" show_tickets="yes" ticket_text="%%resort%% lift tickets" ]

    Case2) works but displays all the mountains

    [snow_report location="New Hampshire" mountain=" " caption="Snow Conditions for Black Mountain in Jackson New Hampshire" show_tickets="yes" ticket_text="%%resort%% lift tickets" ]

    Any suggestions is appreciated.
    Thanks
    Pepin

  • Jeff

    Mine still is not reporting the open mountain in Colorado or the snow fall??

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      Thanks for reporting; I’m going to be working on it today.

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      The Snow Report plugin data source (OnTheSnow.com) reports that “We’re currently in the process of updating the back end of our site and are aware of the RSS feed errors. Should be fixed soon.” https://twitter.com/OnTheSnow/status/262963885399748608

      Please be patient while this is fixed. Thank you!

      Thank you,

      Zack Katz
      President
      Katz Web Services, Inc.

      ––––––––––––––––——–
      Office: 970.882.1477
      Cell: 970.676.8050

  • Jim Kimmons

    I like the plugin & perfect for http://rockymountainplaces.com. However, have put shortcode for each state on a page, and seems to be getting snowfall, but see “Array” or “N/A” under Surface Conditions and blank under Lift Tickets.

  • Jim Kimmons

    Perfect plugin form my Rocky Mountain Places site, but see http://rockymountainplaces.com/snow-reports-by-state/colorado-snow-reports/ . Showing “Array” under Surface Conditions and nothing under Tickets. Help?

  • http://www.facebook.com/CodeMonk David Frascone

    Seems to not be reporting. Resorts are opening, and plugin says closed.

  • http://www.facebook.com/richard.shield Richard Shield

    Hi there, The default font for the table is a bit ugly…is there a way to change this? Also the “align” command only changes the alignment of the content not the alignment of the column headers. Lastly….when I use the shortcode for just one location is there a way to not show the resort name?

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      The ugly font issue and centering issue are theme & CSS issues. The resort name can be hidden using CSS as well.

  • Northeast Surfing

    It was working fine and now it is not. Not sure why, instead of the reports showing, only the code display’s, what changed?

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      If the shortcode code shows, the plugin is not active.

  • Robert Yazbeck

    can you add an image, maybe a snow flake or something a bit more visually appealing? If so, how? Thanks!

    • http://www.seodenver.com Zack Katz

      You can do that using CSS

  • Mark

    I don’t see any snow amounts on the pages, is the plugin down?