Yes, shocking, we know. A report and comparative maps from this season and last confirm the obvious.
It’s official: This winter was a bad snow year. Not that we really needed NASA to tell us this, but alas, a report comparing last year’s plentiful powder with this winter’s sad snowfall amounts blames the mild winter on a La Niña pattern that pushed the precipitation northward. That was compounded by something called an Arctic Oscillation, a strong one in this case, that kept all that cold air circling the North Pole rather than drifting down to more southerly latitudes.
This week (and next) is shaping up in perfect La Nina fashion. Here's how to understand the storm patterns.
There is a massive gap in meteorology for skiers and snowboarders who like snow.
On one side of the chasm are the long-range predictions about which mountains will see the most snow this winter. We covered this season’s snowfall forecast here, and it’s all about La Nina.
On the other side is the tracking of individual storms and hearing about snowfall forecasts of 4-8” tonight, or if you’re lucky maybe something more like 10-18”. Insert any “that’s what she said” joke here.
“Why do we care about La Nina, or El Nino?” In short, it’s really the only reliable clue that meteorologists have to predict temperature and precipitation patterns months and seasons in advance. Meteorologist/skier Joel Gratz weighs in.
“Hey La Nina, what’s in it for me?” When geek-speak goes mainstream, you know the nerds must have a hot topic on their hands. You might think that I’m talking about The Facebook Movie (“The Social Network”), where geeks write computer code over shots of Tequila. But not quite.