Cover Photo: Plattekill Mountain | Above Photo: Cannon Mountian
NOAA is forecasting that there is a 75% chance that we’ll be in between the El Niño threshold and La Niña through the fall. This means we will be in neutral through the fall, with a 55-60% chance of continued neutral conditions through the spring of 2020.
So what does this mean for the 2019 / 2020 ski season? Neutral years make it harder to predict our winter weather than when El Niño or La Niña influencing it. But unfortunately, mountains tend to see below normal snowfall during neutral conditions.
“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.” – The Denver Post.
It’s still unclear how the 2019/20 ski season will play out, but like all seasons, some ski resorts will get ample snowfall while others are left high and dry.
Here is to a great season ahead.