Another epic snow year?

Sorry, skiers, but it looks like snowpack may be below normal

Sorry to be a buzzkill, but skiers and snowboarders who were spoiled last winter and spring with bountiful snow probably won’t be as fortunate this season.

One of the factors that influence our winter weather suggests we could have slightly below-normal snow in the mountains this year, said Colorado State Climatologist Russ Schumacher. That’s because neither of the phenomenons known as El Niño and La Niña are at play.

There are many factors that influence our mountain snowfall, but a big one is the swing in Pacific Ocean temperatures that produces El Niño and La Niña. El Niño occurs when surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific are above-average, usually resulting in wet and cool conditions across the southern tier of states, with good snow for Colorado’s southern resorts. La Niña years, when those ocean temperatures are cooler than normal, tend to produce dry, warm conditions in the south, while the Pacific Northwest is wet and cool. That can favor our northern resorts.

Why the science lesson? Because the U.S. Climate Prediction Center says readings in the equatorial Pacific are near average, producing “neutral” conditions in the El Niño-La Niña cycle. And that may not be good for our snowfall outlook.

“It’s probably a safe bet that we’re not going to see another epic snow season like we saw last year,” said Schumacher, director of the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University. “Most locations in the mountains tend to be on average a little bit lower than normal snowfall during neutral conditions. There’s a handful of neutral years where you get a lot of snow and a handful where it’s quite dry. In the record that we have, there is more of those dry years than the snowy years in the neutral phase.”