As the global weather pattern known as Super El Niño gains strength, talk of how much snow it might dump on ski resorts in the West this year also continues to build.
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But one forecaster decided to look back at how the snowpack finished during the 1997-1998 winter season — one of the four strongest El Niño episodes on record — at each ski region across the western U.S.
OpenSnow meteorologist Sam Collentine said there are two major sources of uncertainty in long-range forecasts predicting weather months in advance.
The first is how accurately forecasters can predict El Niño or La Niña. El Niño is expected to continue, and there’s a greater than 90% chance of a very strong event during the Northern Hemisphere fall and winter of 2026-27, he said.
The second is the atmospheric response to El Niño or La Niña, Collentine said. That is, if El Niño occurs, does it always affect the weather in North America in the same way?
The short answer is no.
Looking at the past to predict the future
“To determine how El Niño impacts weather in North America, we can look at snowfall records during past El Niño events and compare them to a typical year,” Collentine wrote.
Here’s are the western snowpack levels during the four strongest El Niño episodes on record:
- 1982-1983: 139%
- 1991-1992: 73%
- 1997-1998: 104%
- 2015-2016: 98%
So, only two of the four resulted in higher-than-average snowpacks.
“The effects of El Niño appear to show a mixed bag for much of the western United States, with the strongest signal being average to above-average snowfall for the Southwest. Again, though, the pattern doesn’t hold 100% of the time,” Collentine wrote.
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Collentine then, “to have a little fun,” looked specifically at how the snowpack finished during the 1997-1998 winter season at each ski region across the western United States:
- California: 156%
- Colorado: 101%
- Utah: 128%
- Southwest: 138%
- Pacific Northwest: 102%
- Northern Rockies: 96%
- All Regions: 104%
While the 1997-1998 ski season is interesting to look at as a potential comparison for an El Niño episode, keep in mind that no matter how deep or light a winter is overall, when it comes to skiing, it’s all about timing, he said.
Collentine said booking a trip seven to 10 days in advance and for a general area that looks stormy will increase the chances of scoring the best conditions.
What is a ‘Super El Niño?’
El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern in the tropical Pacific Ocean in which sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific become warmer than average. When the sea surface temperature there runs at least 0.5 degrees Celsius above average for a sustained period, meteorologists call it El Niño. When it runs cold, it’s called La Niña.
Meteorologists typically use the term Super El Niño when temperatures climb 2 degrees Celsius above normal. Meteorologists will compare specific Pacific temperatures to the average temperatures in the area and compared to the rest of the tropical oceans to determine that 2-degree threshold.
“It sounds small. A patch of the Pacific being a degree or two warmer than usual doesn’t seem like it should matter to anyone who isn’t a fish. But that warm water reshapes the jet stream, which reshapes where storms go, which is the only part of this article that actually matters to skiers,” forecaster Evan Thayer wrote for Ski Utah.
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