Super El Nino: Was I Wrong About Snowfall Predictions?

El Niño and La Niña trends have little correlation on long-term snowfall trends in your favourite ski areas - but is that about to change with the dawn of a Super El Niño?

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I’ve written in the past on the effects of El Niño and its sister weather pattern La Nina on snowfall around the world. These are the two extremes of various Pacific Ocean current oscillations, and are regularly used by skiers to predict a great season of snowfall, or as an excuse for a bad season – tune into any skier’s Instagram feed in September and it will be full of these predictions.

If you haven’t read this article – and you can catch yourself up on it here – in short I advocate that everyone needs to chill out; El Niño and La Niña offer very little difference in local snowfall variation, as demonstrated by the almost identical set of Northern Hemisphere winters between 2022/23 and 2024/25 when both El Niño and La Niña weather patterns were in play.

But last year was different. Utah recorded its worst ever snowfall season, just a couple of years after recording its best. Parts of the Northern Alps, most notably Austria, were green and pleasant until March, and the PNW, Coastal Ranges and Vancouver Island were barren for much of the winter.

All this has been blamed on a growing, strong El Niño effect, so strong it has been dubbed a “Super El Niño”. So, what is a “Super” El Niño, and was I wrong about everything?

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A Reminder of El Niño and La Niña

Throughout the world's oceans, there are a series of currents of warm or cold water that are constantly flowing and cycling around, driven by fluctuations in the Earth's temperature and the rotation of the globe.

Most of these are fairly static, steadily transporting warm water into cooler areas – or vice versa – and have a very steady influencing hand on both global and regional weather patterns. A great example of this is the Gulf Stream, a steady flow of warm currents from the Gulf of Mexico across the Atlantic and over Northwestern Europe: it’s a key reason why the UK, Ireland and Norway benefit from milder winters compared to the rest of the continent, including phenomena such as ice-free sea ports all the way up to Murmansk in Russia, and is a key reason in driving Norway’s great snow record when this interacts with blocks of cooler air over the continent.

The South Pacific Ocean current, cycling water between South America and Oceania, is a bit of a weird one. Every few years - for reasons completely unknown to scientists - it flips around, and where it was once transporting cool sea water on its path, it will transport warm sea water instead. The standard, predominant cool pattern is referred to as La Niña when it spikes to cooler-than-average sea temperatures, with the opposite, occasional warm pattern known as El Niño appearing somewhere around every ten years and lasting, usually, for a couple of years before reverting back to La Niña conditions.

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What is a “Super El Niño”?

The strength of an El Niño or La Niña pattern is defined by how warm or cool the sea temperature in the pacific is above its normal average.

Currently, temperatures in the pacific are still building, however have already hit the 0.5°C above average to be considered into the El Niño phase. The strength of this warming has led scientists to believe that, by November 2026, it will have well exceeded the 2°C above average required to make it a truly historical event.

The Super El Niño event that is predicted is expected to be only the fourth such event to take place since records began in the 1950s, and potentially one of the strongest ever. Previous such events took place in 1982-83, 1997-98, and 2015-16.

These coincided with dramatic peaks in record recorded temperatures across the globe, as well as severe weather events such as widespread famine across Ethiopia and Africa, devastating wildfires in Australia, and massive flooding across South America.

Interestingly, it is believed to be one of the few weather events not directly impacted by climate change; that being said, as the world continues to heat up and global climates continue to evolve, these evolutions and warmings become exponentially worse as a result of El Niño.

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What Does This Mean for Skiers and Snowboarders?

Okay, so this is where you decide to get out the pitchforks for me or not.

El Niño spikes can alter the flow of major air currents such as the Jet Stream, often shifting it further south than it normally flows, most notably across the USA and Canada. This can have the affect of pushing more moist and unsettled weather onto the Sierras and Southern Rockies, whereas this normally makes landfall over the PNW and Costal Ranges instead.

Normally - and this was the crux of my argument last time out - there is not enough of a change in snowfall totals or weather patterns to provide a strong correlation between El Niño, La Niña, and long-term powder forecasts across North America.

Here's where things go off script. Because a Super El Niño is so strong, it will have an impact on long-term powder forecasts. We've seen this last winter, where the Sierras and southern Rockies had a decent enough time of it, but the PNW, Utah, Tetons, Coastals and BC Interior were completely starved of snow. Note that the Sierras didn't record a stupid amount of snowfall, however, indicating that this is not a zero-sum game and everyone stands to lose from this.

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What About Snowfall Predictions for Next Season?

No, nope, uh-uh, no way.

I refuse to get drawn in on long-term weather predictions.

They are pointless and inaccurate, and even globally shifting dominant forces cannot alter that.

What's that? You'll subscribe to my newsletter if I offer my sagely wisdom?

What's they, you'll follow me on Instagram if I read the snowy tea leaves?

Fine. I hate myself already, but a deal's a deal.

I expect we'll have a very similar start and middle to this coming season as we did to last season, with desolate conditions across parts of North America and Austria, but bumper snowfall across Italy and Scotland (fingers crossed for the latter).

El Niños tend to peak around Christmas and begin to tail off quickly, a short and sharp weather event unlike its sister. Therefore the back end of the season could be a marked improvement from the start of winter. This is partly a cop-out, as this has been the global trend over the last few years and also because North America's winter seemed to run from April to June this year as a result of this growing El Niño, but screw it, it's all I've got.