One of the strongest El Niño events in the modern record is taking shape heading into the 2026-27 ski season, but Utah skiers looking for a simple answer about what that means for snowfall are probably going to be disappointed.
Utah Avalanche Center forecaster Craig Gordon recently sat down with retired National Weather Service hydrologist Brian McInerney at DPS Skis headquarters in Salt Lake City to break down the developing El Niño, the jet stream, atmospheric rivers and what all of it could mean for skiing and avalanche conditions in the Wasatch this winter.
McInerney spent 30 years working in hydrology with the National Weather Service and has also worked as a ski patroller. His main message was straightforward: this winter has the potential to be extremely dynamic, but predicting exactly where Utah lands months in advance is difficult.
The developing El Niño is unusually strong, with exceptionally warm waters across the equatorial Pacific. McInerney said that makes this winter particularly difficult to compare directly with past seasons.
That sounds dramatic.
For Utah snowfall, however, history offers surprisingly little clarity.
Eight Big El Niño Winters Produced a 50/50 Split
Gordon and McInerney looked back at eight moderate-to-extreme El Niño events dating to around 1950 and compared them with snowpack in the Cottonwood Canyons.
Four produced below-average snowpack. Four finished above average.
“So you can’t really, it’s kind of 50/50.”
That is one reason McInerney cautions against assuming a powerful El Niño automatically translates into a huge Utah winter.
El Niño typically strengthens the southern branch of the jet stream, often directing more Pacific storms toward California, the Southwest and southern Rockies while leaving areas farther north with fewer storms.
Utah can sit awkwardly between those two zones.
McInerney said the critical question this winter may be whether that southern storm track reaches far enough north to put the Wasatch in the path of repeated Pacific storms.
“If that jet moves up to the Wasatch up here, we’ll have a great year. But the question is, is it going to do that or is it going to stay down farther south?”
That uncertainty is really the central theme of the winter outlook.
A strong El Niño can influence the broad storm pattern, but it does not determine exactly where every storm will track or how much snow an individual mountain range will receive.
Atmospheric Rivers Could Be the Wild Card
One of the more interesting parts of the discussion involved atmospheric rivers.
McInerney described them as relatively narrow corridors of concentrated Pacific moisture that can produce enormous precipitation totals when they encounter mountain terrain.
Unlike El Niño, which is a climate pattern that can influence weather for months, an atmospheric river is an individual weather event that typically lasts several days.
California is frequently the primary target, but the right storm trajectory can push that moisture inland toward Utah.
“If we can have an atmospheric river that somehow sneaks underneath the Sierras and moves up into Utah, that’s when we get some really excellent powder skiing and it just dumps tons of snow.”
The ideal scenario for Wasatch skiers, according to McInerney, would combine that moisture with sufficiently cold air and a westerly storm track during the heart of winter.
December, January and February are the months he identified as the most important window.
The Early Season Could Be Warm
McInerney was considerably less enthusiastic about the beginning of winter.
He expects the developing pattern could bring relatively warm storms during October, November and potentially into December.
“My feeling is in the early winter we’ll probably see a lot of rain.”
During another portion of the conversation, he suggested early-season rain could reach approximately 7,000 to 8,000 feet at times, leaving the highest and colder north-facing terrain more likely to hold early snow.
That matters for more than ski-area opening dates.
Early snow that survives on shaded high-elevation slopes can become the foundation of the winter snowpack. If a prolonged dry spell follows, that snow can weaken and become sugary or faceted.
Once buried by later storms, those layers can become persistent avalanche weak layers.
A Better Winter Could Also Mean a Better Avalanche Setup
Last winter provided an example of how that process can become problematic.
McInerney and Gordon discussed early-season snow followed by prolonged high pressure. The old snow weakened during the dry period before eventually being buried by new storms, creating dangerous avalanche conditions.
Their preferred scenario this winter would look very different.
McInerney described a snowpack that begins accumulating around mid-November and then receives storms regularly enough that long dry periods do not have time to severely weaken the surface.
“Maybe four days will go by, you’ll have another storm, and it doesn’t allow those layers to get faceted.”
He compared the ideal structure to building a cake with denser snow underneath and lighter snow above.
Regular storms would not eliminate avalanche danger, but they could reduce the chances of developing some of the persistent weak layers associated with extended early-season droughts.
Gordon emphasized that an especially dynamic winter could still create complicated snowpack conditions, making it important to watch how each individual storm cycle develops.
Do Not Put Too Much Faith in a Forecast Made in September
Perhaps the most useful part of the conversation came when McInerney discussed the limits of long-range weather forecasting.
The ocean and atmosphere can provide signals about the broad pattern ahead, but that is very different from predicting how much snow Alta, Snowbird, Brighton or Solitude will receive several months from now.
McInerney said forecasts become dramatically more reliable at shorter ranges.
“A good weather forecast seven days out is really difficult. Five days, it gets pretty good. Three days it’s exceptionally good.”
Trying to predict December snowfall from September is a much different exercise.
“You don’t want to bet any money on this.”
That point is especially relevant this year because forecasters are dealing with an El Niño that McInerney says has no close historical comparison.
Past El Niño winters can provide clues, but he argues that they should not be treated as a blueprint for what happens next.
“This El Niño is so strong that we’ve never seen this in recorded history. So we have nothing to base it on really, to see where we are.”
Utah Could Land on Either Side of This Winter
Southern Utah appears better positioned to benefit from the typical El Niño storm track, while the Pacific Northwest generally sits on the drier side of the pattern.
Northern Utah is somewhere in between.
McInerney expects plenty of variability and potentially powerful storms, but exactly where the jet stream sets up will determine whether the central and northern Wasatch repeatedly get caught in the action or mostly receive the edges of storms passing farther south.
“We have something that could be exceptionally good or exceptionally poor.”
He expects southern Utah to have a stronger moisture signal while the Pacific Northwest could be drier, leaving the Wasatch somewhere between those larger patterns.
That may not be the definitive powder forecast Utah skiers were hoping for.
It is probably the most useful one available in September.
Rather than treating El Niño as a guarantee, McInerney recommends watching the evolving storm track and relying increasingly on shorter-range forecasts as winter approaches.
For skiers, his final advice was considerably simpler.
“Keep your skis ready to go because when it hits, you got to get on it.”
