Winter is still three months off, and it is already trending. The UN issued a formal warning this week about a “supersized” El Niño forming in the Pacific — sea surface temperatures projected to run 3–4.5°C above average by its peak around December, which several meteorologists are calling the strongest El Niño on record. For anyone planning a ski trip, that is exactly the kind of headline that triggers a search for “where will it actually snow” — and the honest answer is that the two big long-range forecasts do not agree with each other.
Here is what both are actually saying, and how to use that to plan rather than panic-book.
Two Forecasts, Two Different Winters
The Old Farmer’s Almanac, working from its own long-range model, expects a broadly mild winter with pockets of real cold, and specifically calls for above-normal snow in central New England, the Appalachians, and the Pacific Northwest and Intermountain West — with snowfall in the Northwest and Intermountain region peaking in three windows: late December, mid-January, and mid-February. The South — Texas, Oklahoma, the Deep South — it expects warmer and drier than usual.
The meteorologists reading this year’s El Niño signal directly are calling a different map. Their read is significant snow deficits across much of the northern US — the Pacific Northwest, the Great Lakes, the Ohio Valley and the Northeast — with above-average snowfall instead concentrated in the Sierra Nevada, the Four Corners region, the southern Rockies, the central Plains, and parts of the Midwest, East and Mid-Atlantic.
Notice the two disagree almost exactly where it matters most for skiers: the Pacific Northwest. One model has it as one of the winter’s snowiest regions; the El Niño-driven read has it running short. That is not a typo, and it is not one source being wrong — it is two different methodologies producing different outputs from the same season, which is normal for forecasts issued this far out.
Where the Forecasts Actually Agree
Strip out the disagreement and a few things hold up in both reads: the southern Rockies and Four Corners (Colorado’s southern resorts, northern New Mexico) look likely to do well, as does the Sierra Nevada in California — both consistent with a strong El Niño winter, which historically tends to push the storm track further south than a typical year. If you are choosing between a Tahoe trip and a Pacific Northwest trip this winter, the weight of both forecasts currently favors Tahoe.
How to Actually Plan Around This
- Don’t book non-refundable based on a September forecast. Both of these are seasonal outlooks, not weather forecasts — useful for picking a region, not for picking a week. Choose destinations with flexible-date lift ticket packages or free cancellation where possible.
- Watch for NOAA’s official winter outlook from the Climate Prediction Center, typically released in October — it is the forecast built specifically on El Niño’s current strength and is the closest thing to an authoritative regional call before the season starts.
- If snow security matters more than any one resort, a strong El Niño winter is historically kinder to the southern half of the ski map — Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, the Sierra — than to the Pacific Northwest or the Rockies’ northern reaches.
- Build in a plan B region for any trip booked more than two months out, given that the two most-cited long-range forecasts of the season are already pointing in different directions for the same mountains.
The Honest Caveat
Even meteorologists working directly from El Niño data are careful to note that a strong El Niño raises the odds of certain regional patterns without guaranteeing any specific local outcome. Treat both of these forecasts as a starting point for choosing a region, not a substitute for checking resort snowfall totals and the NOAA outlook again once you are actually inside the booking window.
Seasonal weather already reshaped travel planning once this year, when an active Atlantic hurricane season pushed Gulf Coast travelers toward flexible bookings and real-time forecast tracking instead of fixed dates. Winter’s version of the same lesson is starting three months early this time.
