Does La Niña Guarantee Powder Days for Skiers? We Asked Meteorologists

A La Niña ski season is likely upon us.

On July 11th, the Climate Prediction Center and the National Weather Service published an El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) update , which predicted that the odds of a La Niña developing during the late summer and fall are 70%.

By now, the elevator pitch of what the La Niña means for skiers has been widely publicized. In the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, it foretells cooler than average winters with more precipitation, according to OpenSnow , a forecasting outlet popular amongst skiers. Southern portions of the U.S. are slated for the opposite. These outcomes are linked to ocean surface temperatures in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific. La Niña means cooler water, and El Niño—the La Niña's counterpart—mean warmer water, creating different winter weather trends.

That's all well and good, but the actual significance of the impending La Niña is a bit foggier. Is this coming ski season set in stone? Should we all start booking mid-winter trips to ski resorts throughout the Pacific Northwest and Alaska right now? It might be better to wait and see.

"We know that on average, La Niña winters, for example, tend to produce a little more snow in the Pacific Northwest," said Jim Steenburgh, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Utah. "Those years tend to be better, but it doesn't lock it in."

Steenburgh is also generally skeptical of long term seasonal outlooks that try to guess what an upcoming winter will look like. "I think they sell maybe some newspapers, but they're not necessarily all that helpful in terms of what the ski season is going to be," he said, noting that the timing of snowfall during any given winter is difficult to determine with reliability far in advance.

"If you're going to be out, say, for a week of skiing, you know, just the randomness in the atmosphere could give you really good conditions or really bad conditions," Steenburgh said.

In areas near the center of the U.S., La Niña doesn't skew the snowfall odds in any direction, further clouding the crystal ball. Steenburgh cited Utah as an example. La Niñas tend to push the jet stream up north and reduce subtropical jet activity in the south. "We can get snow under the right circumstances from either one of those tracks," Steenburgh said. "We just don't know what's going to happen this far out, and knowing it's a La Niña doesn't do us any good say for the Wasatch."

When Steenburgh works on his own forecasts, he doesn't focus too much on details like snowfall totals until a storm's arrival is three days away. A blog post from NOAA said that five-day forecasts are accurate 90% of the time, and seven-day forecasts are correct 80% of the time. Specific forecasts that look ten days or longer into the future are a coin toss.

La Niña's presence does simplify long-term, broad forecasts, though. "It's better than nothing," said Alan Smith, a meteorologist with OpenSnow. "It's one of the only climate signals we can really predict months in advance for the next season."

When neither a La Niña nor an El Niño occurs, we enter a phase called ENSO Neutral, which, according to Smith, makes the long-range forecast game even more difficult. During ENSO Neutral, he explained, "We really don't have much to go by." When the La Niña comes to town, there's at least a historical pattern to work with. And, generally, the stronger a La Niña is (water temperatures indicate a La Niña's strength), the more reliable its impacts are, writes Thomas Di Liberto of NOAA.

But overall, Smith shares Steenburgh's sentiment. "I wouldn't necessarily base your expectation of the upcoming season on La Niña or El Niño because there's just so many other things that can happen," he said.

While that might disappoint Pacific Northwest skiers hoping for a powder guarantee, there's a silver lining for residents of the southwest dreading La Niña's arrival. "If you're in an area that's favored for below average [snow] during a La Niña, for instance, it doesn't mean you're doomed. It doesn't always work out that way," said Smith.

Smith advises against relying on the La Niña to inform your winter travel plans. Instead, he suggests you pick a location within driving distance of numerous ski resorts so you can take advantage of whichever resort has the best snow that week, and don't book an early season trip so the snowpack has time to accumulate.

Steenburgh offered another bit of La Niña advice. "You know, my usual line to people is, don't worry too much about it, and ski it if it's white," he said with a laugh.

Related: What is La Niña?

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