The Ice-kid Cometh!
SnowSchool weighs in on the return of La Nina and the likelihood of a historically snowy winter!
By Kerry McClay, WWA SnowSchool Director (November 6, 2025)
Today is a big day at Winter Wildlands Alliance for stoking enthusiasm for winter. First off, tonight we are getting our home town crowd excited for the coming season by hosting the World Premiere of our annual Backcountry Film Festival! On top of that it’s been exactly one year to the day since we published our last winter snowfall prediction article, meaning it’s time for a fresh forecast from SnowSchool’s crystal snowball. So prepare for peak snow-stoke! In this article we’ll take a look at how our predictions from last winter fared, what the NOAA projections for another La Nina winter might mean, and most importantly perhaps, what our favorite snow scientists have to say about the coming snow season!
Check out this video on Snow Science and Winter Forecasting featuring snow scientist Ron Abramovich, who breaks down early-season snowpack conditions, historic weather patterns, and how changing conditions are impacting winter recreation.
Is this a “Double Dip” La Nina winter?
First, in quick review, La Niña describes the global weather pattern that follows when ocean temps in the equatorial Pacific are cooler than average. This is the opposite of El Niño, which happens when ocean temps are warmer than average. During a typical La Niña winter in North America, the polar jet stream blasts across the northern United States bringing cold air and precipitation, while the southern United States is drier and warmer than average.
So yes, while it is true that last winter in North America also saw a La Niña pattern, that ended in April with a return to neutral ocean conditions. So it’s not technically a double dip La Nina event. Only when the La Nina pattern persists through the year does it create the opportunity for the somewhat rare Double Dip and even rarer Triple Dip events.
Snowpocalypse Now? Analog years and the forecasting of a historically snowy winter.
Some of the big snow predictions that appeared in last November’s SnowSchool blog proved remarkably accurate. Perhaps most notably WWA’s own Ron Abramovich said he thought the winter of 2024-25 in the intermountain region would be very similar to 2017. Now that it’s all said and done, when you compare April 1st snowpack levels in central Idaho between those two years (2017 and 2025) you see it’s nearly identical– 130% to 129% of the median snowpack respectively. That’s really close! So what’s the trick here?
On his own blog, Abramovich explains how he closely follows the work of his colleague Pete Parsons from Oregon Department of Forestry. Parsons tracks regional ocean temperatures over time to help pluck out analog years– past years with similar patterns that can provide the basis for a possible winter forecast. Last winter they picked 2017 as a leading analog year, this year Abramovich has zeroed in on the winter of 1981-82 (followed by 1968, 2018 and runner up 2002)
The good news here is there was some BIG snow that arrived in the winter of 1981-82! For starters, by April 1st of 1982 snowpack levels were significantly above the median across the western US (See the map above, green is average while dark blue is 150% or more above average)
Here’s some other interesting notes about big snow events in 1982 we found-
A fun experiment is to grab those analog years that match current conditions and plug them into the NRCS Interactive SNOTEL Map to see how the winters unfolded. For example, 1982 was remarkably moist January 1st to April 1st across the western US. It’s worth pointing out that April 1st is an important spot on the calendar because its the date snow hydrologists and streamflow forecasters have historically used to measure a season’s cumulative snowpack. And if you look back in time, you’ll find near average to above average snowpack levels for April 1st in lots of western watersheds for the other analog years mentioned by Abramovich (1968 (limited data available), 2018 and 2002). So bring on the snow!
Forecasters and Snow Scientists weigh in:
It’s important to clarify that not all forecasters and scientists are predicting the exact same snowfall patterns. For example NOAA’s official forecast calls for a “Weak La Niña” event this winter. This occurs when Pacific ocean temps are only mildly cooler than normal, between -0.9° and -0.5°, compared to strong La Niña events (-1.5°C). These events typically form later in the fall and typically fade by the end of winter, unlike stronger La Niña patterns, which can last well into the calendar year. For this season, the forecasted mild La Niña might signal a slightly wetter winter in northern regions and a drier, warmer season in the southern U.S.
Longtime SnowSchool collaborator Meghan Collins of the NASA-funded Mountain Rain or Snow citizen science project commented that “NOAA is my go-to! Their seasonal forecasts share the probability of snowfalls above or below average over the next several months, but the technology isn’t advanced enough to predict just how much we’ll receive.” Collins elaborated, “the team at Mountain Rain or Snow ‘lives in the moment’ when it comes to seasonal forecasts – we tend to put our money on 10-14 day forecasts, knowing those can change too! While this doesn’t allow for long-term planning, the Mountain Ran or Snow team does send all participants of our citizen science program forecasts by text message when storms are approaching. Share observations of rain, snow, and mixed precipitation with us all winter by signing up here!”
Kate Hale is a snow scientist with University of British Columbia who provided SnowSchool with an amazing series of instructional videos during her time leading field measurements in Alaska with the NASA SnowEx campaign. Dr. Hale commented, “La Niña years are linked with cooler and wetter winters here in British Columbia, specifically around the South Coast where the UBC Snow Water Resources group will be doing much of our fieldwork, and that’s what we’re hoping for this year!”
One of SnowSchool’s longtime snow science partners is David Foster-Hill, a scientist with Oregon State University and Community Snow Observations (CSO), a NASA-funded citizen science project. CSO focuses on tracking backcountry snowpack depth (especially in OR, CA and CO) and is a citizen science resource used by SnowSchool students and educators. Like last winter, David weighed in with another La Nina prediction for his home range, but pointed out how low elevation patterns are shifting in a changing climate.
“This is similar to what I sent last year, BUT it is for Hogg Pass SNOTEL a lower elevation station than the Mt. Hood one from last year. There are several important take-aways from this figure. Similar to higher elevation stations (like Mt. Hood) the data that a La Nina year is, on average, better than an El Nino year. An important point to remember is that there is a lot of variance in the data! For example, I can point to red dots in this figure that are higher than the blue dots!
A more important (and possibly alarming) point is that this site shows that the snowpack at lower elevation sites has fallen off a proverbial cliff since about 2010. Which, now that I think about it, is when I moved to Oregon. Not that I’m looking to assign blame, mind you. This is really important in terms of ‘resilience’ to warming trends. Our colder, higher elevation locations has a relatively nice ‘buffer’ to a few degrees of warming. Our lower elevation sites in the Pacific Northwest decidedly do NOT.”
