El Niño Predictions
Posted by Patrick Holland on
We're all very excited for El Niño ...... At least we think we are? Everyone seems psyched for it, which is cool, but what does it mean for us?
This morning we decided to do some research hoping to understand how high we should actually get our hopes. The conclusion is that no one really has any idea.
El Niño is characterized by a "different" weather pattern than normal due to water temps at the equator. We waded through articles and Q&A by a handful of our favorite meteorologists and snow predictors only to discover that no one really has any idea what it will mean for snowfall. No one is ready to commit to saying that it will be any better or worse than normal for anyone.
We learned that Peruvians were the first to recognize and name the El Niño phenomenon as warmer than normal water temperatures which caused poor fishing conditions. We've learned that it not only affects Peru but also the rest of the world with crazy typhoons and out of the ordinary levels of precipitation and storm intensity.
We also learned that the 1997-1998 season was the most significant El Niño in recorded history. So we decided to predict what El Niño would mean for us in 2015-16 based on our own historical research.
We discovered that we can understand why no one seems to know what El Niño will mean for our ski season. In 97-98 AK got pounded, which we like. Colorado had no discernible pattern at least based on our amateur review, some mountains got more than average some less. Utah did well. It seems like the North of New England / northeast did well with a line just above Mt Washington. Whiteface, Stowe Vt, and Sugarloaf did well while Mt Washington, the rest of the NH mountains and Southern Vermont had contrasting miserable results. Jackson got much less than normal while Targhee got much more than normal. California did better the further North you went.
None of it seemed consistent. There were five distinct patterns that winter and each was good for some and not so good for others.
So we have concluded that it's fun to get psyched for a great snow year and we will keep our fingers crossed and think positive. Finally, just like every other year, we won't know what we're going to get until we get it.
You heard it here first! There is bound to be snow somewhere and we are looking forward to it!