Winter 2026-2027: El Niño isn’t always bad news in the Cascades

Yesterday I covered all the basics of this upcoming winter and what it could mean down in the lower elevations where most of us live. You should read that blog post first to get an idea of what we generally expect across the Pacific Northwest. This post is all about what we might see in the Cascades; especially important for the ski/snowboard/snowplay industry.

The phrase “EL NINO” has a pretty bad reputation in the Pacific Northwest among skiers. But after one of the worst ski seasons on record last year, WHATEVER happens this year has to be an improvement, right?

Why the bad rep? Because we tend to see warmer and drier than average weather across the northern half of the Pacific Northwest as mentioned in yesterday’s post. You’ve likely heard that California gets slammed by lots of stormy/wet weather many of these winters (but not all!). You can find a list of these winters here: El Niño episodes are in red. Take a look at the last 8 El Niño winters (since 2000) combined…the precipitation anomaly. Warm colors mean drier than average, cool colors = wetter than average. Strong DRY signal here for December to March but wetter down in California and southern Oregon

BUT…check out just the very strong (super) El Niño events since 1970 (like this upcoming winter)…strong signal for wetter than normal all along the West Coast.

Temperature anomaly for the same years; a clear signal for warmer than normal!

So let’s take a look at Cascade snowfall during the 25 El Niño winters we have seen since the early 1950s at Government Camp. Average yearly accumulation (for any year) is 254″ (click for full-size)

There is a downward trend as well through the entire period; although 25 data points is a pretty small sample. Do you notice the events in the 1960s seemed to do just fine for snowfall, but post-1970 or so things have gone downhill at bit? It may be that a very gradual warmup (global warming) in the Cascades has produced more warm storms (rain vs. snow) at that elevation. Notice that I am focusing on the 4,000′ elevation. That’s because yearly snowfall data is sparse in general. Mt. Hood Meadows is up at the 5,400′ elevation. So I plugged in those numbers to see how things vary vs. Gov’t Camp. Those records only go back to 1982 and I don’t have the 2023-24 number

That brings up a good point…total snowfall for the season doesn’t matter as much as what happens during the important winter months of December-February when most of us ski/snowboard. Here are the Gov’t Camp numbers for just that 3 month period during El Niño winters…not as bad.

There are some years (06-07, 15-16, 18-19) when plenty of snow fell during this time. Drilling down a bit further, just looking at November+December snow below. That’s when we want to see a solid base develop. Most years are at least “okay”. An example is December 2018. Little or no snow on the ground up there early in the month, but just in time for Christmas Break a dumping arrived. Whew! So even a drier/warmer than normal January/February can be offset by a one-month dumping of snow in December. That 3-6 foot base can sustain the ski season, although it doesn’t help the water supply much.

So perception of winter up in the mountains will be based on two things: timing of snowfall, and if we get a regular refresh of good quality snowfall.