Snow levels in the Methow Valley last winter were well below normal, as seen in this Feb. 4 photo. This year’s super El Niño will bring a greater chance of a warmer winter, which could mean another low-snow year.
Climate event could mean less snowfall
Historically speaking, snow levels in the Methow Valley couldn’t get much worse than they were last winter.
But the dire warnings of a coming “super” El Niño have some state climate experts wondering whether this winter will be a bummer, too, for snow enthusiasts and the local recreation economy.
Even so, the man in charge of North America’s largest cross-country ski area remains optimistic.
“Every year has unpredictability,” Methow Trails Executive Director James DeSalvo said last week in an interview. “But El Niño years have traditionally been good to us.”
What is El Niño?
El Niño announces itself through a spike in eastern Pacific Ocean temperatures at the equator. Sea-surface temperatures in this zone are usually dropping this time of year, but now they are climbing into uncharted territory, hitting a record 85 degrees as of Aug. 22, according to a New York Times report. (Swimmers who frequent Wagner Memorial Pool would find the water off the South American coast to be balmy. The pool is kept at 81 degrees.)
El Niño’s effects are felt globally, from more intense Pacific hurricanes to increased risk of drought in India, Australia and parts of Africa. Washington state is usually warmer and drier during an El Niño — a bad combination for those who want snow to return to the Methow in abundance this winter.
Not to be conflated with climate change, El Niño is a naturally occurring phenomenon that has been happening off and on for centuries, although reliable records of these events have only been kept since 1950. (Its climate twin, La Niña, is characterized by cooler-than-normal ocean temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific, and colder and wetter conditions in the Pacific Northwest.)
It’s not clear whether this year’s El Niño, which is expected to be the strongest on record, is getting any sort of boost from climate change.
“The impacts of climate change on the frequency and strength of El Niño events are not yet well understood,” said Jacob Genuise, the Washington State Climate Office’s engagement climatologist.
That said, El Niño coupled with climate change is expected to drive global temperatures in 2027 to the highest levels ever recorded.
Reason for optimism
Even if this year’s super El Niño (what climate scientists refer to, less dramatically, as a “very strong” El Niño) comes as advertised, that doesn’t guarantee a certain outcome. It only increases the probability of a warmer and drier winter here.
“There is always inherent uncertainty with any El Niño event, even the very strong ones,” Genuise said. “Every event is truly unique.”
In fact, during the four most recent super El Niños, dating back to 1982-83, snow levels at various higher-elevation stations in the North Cascades have been near normal. In this state, anyway, the super El Niño hasn’t brought the outsized impacts its name implies.
However, the University of Washington College of the Environment cautioned in an August news release that it’s difficult to draw definitive conclusions from only four events occurring over the past 45 years.
“Because these ‘very strong’ El Niños haven’t happened very often, it’s hard to say whether they represent a real pattern or just a small sample size,” the release said.
“We’re definitely not guaranteed to see the same thing this winter,” UW Climate Impacts Group research scientist Karin Bumbaco emphasized in the release. “We have to be prepared for more typical weather impacts. And so far, our seasonal forecast models are predicting warmer and drier than normal fall and winter conditions.”
DeSalvo noted that El Niños generally bring fairly normal snow years to the Methow.
“The last three El Niño winters have brought an average of 119 days of skiing for us, which is exactly the same as our 20-year average,” he said. –
Snow totals during El Niño winters average 86% of normal in Winthrop and 96% of normal in Mazama, DeSalvo added.
“Next to last year’s valley totals of 15–30% of average snowpack, I’ll take it,” he said.
Officially, snowfall totals in Winthrop and Mazama last winter were just under 50% of average, according to National Weather Service data. At 29.2 inches of total accumulation, Winthrop beat its lowest-ever snow year on record (1962–63) by only 1.4 inches.
Regardless of exactly how bad last year’s snow totals were, they amounted to a down season for Methow Trails. DeSalvo told Methow Valley News in February that last winter’s first day of grooming was Dec. 19, the latest in a decade, and pass sales were down 25-40% at various outlets.
Loup Loup Ski Area didn’t open at all, for the first time in recent memory.
“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” said Jon Brown back in February, when he was the ski area’s executive director.
Regardless of what El Niño might wreak this winter, the season is off to a promising start. The webcams at Mt. Bachelor Mountain Resort in central Oregon showed a dusting of snow on Sept. 2, and the upper elevations of the North Cascades got snow during the last weekend of August.
“So we are heading in the right direction,” DeSalvo said.
