Greetings, weather nerds! Are you obsessing about ski season weather? Well, as forecast by the NOAA Climate Prediction Center in August, a slowly developing La Niña is beginning to influence ski season conditions. NOAA just released the latest winter weather outlook for December 2024 through February 2025, with relevant ski season weather trends, including temperature and precipitation.
This winter, NOAA predicts wetter-than-average conditions for the entire northern tier of the continental U.S., particularly in the Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes region, along with northern and western Alaska. Meanwhile, drier-than-average conditions are expected from the Four Corners region of the Southwest to the Southeast, Gulf Coast and lower mid-Atlantic states.
Winter temperature outlook map. image courtesy of NOAA CPC
Ski Season Temperature Trends
- Warmer-than-average temperatures are favored from the southern tier of the U.S. to the eastern Great Lakes, eastern seaboard, New England and northern Alaska. These probabilities are strongest along the Gulf Coast and for most of Texas.
- Below-average temperatures are most likely in southern Alaska, with below-average temperatures slightly favored from the Pacific Northwest to the northern High Plains.
- The remaining areas have equal chances of below-, near-, or above-average seasonal mean temperatures.
Winter precipitation outlook map. image courtesy of NOAA CPC
Ski Season Precipitation Trends
- Wetter-than-average conditions are most likely in the Great Lakes states, and above-average precipitation is also favored in northern and western Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and across the northern tier of the U.S. These probabilities are strongest in portions of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.
- The greatest likelihood for drier-than-average conditions is in states bordering the Gulf of Mexico, as well as in Texas and southern New Mexico.
- Much of California, the central Plains states and the I-95 corridor from Boston to Washington, D.C., have equal chances of below-average, near-average or above-average seasonal total precipitation.
Read more about La Niña and El Niño on offpistemag.com
And check out this map. It shows snowfall patterns during all La Niña years from January through March
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