Who are the snowfall winners (or losers) during El Niño?

 It's going to be an EL NINO Winter in the U.S. and here's what that means according to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)  Climate Prediction Center. BTW, we have to laugh a little as when we told people we were moving to northern New England they all reacted "What about all the snow?" Well, this year, El Nino is expected to reduce the amount of it (last year, Maine got 12" over 3 weeks in March ONLY, and that was it).  Here's the story.

(Image: Snowfall during all El Niño winters (January-March) compared to the 1991-2020 average (after the long-term trend has been removed). Blue colors show more snow than average; brown shows less snow than average. NOAA Climate.gov map, based on ERA5 data from 1959-2023 analyzed by Michelle L'Heureux.) 

 

Who are the snowfall winners (or losers) during El Niño?

CLIMATE.GOV October 30, 2023

As Emily shared with us last month, the jet stream tends to extend eastward and shift southward during El Niño winters. You can think of the jet stream as a river of air, which carries more moisture and precipitation along the southern tier of the United States during El Niño. As a result, it is not surprising to see a stripe of increased snowfall (blue shading) over the southern half of the country.

Obviously, snowfall is limited in its southernmost reaches because it needs to be cold enough to snow, so the effects are strongest in the higher and colder elevations of the West. To the north, however, there is a reduction in snowfall (brown shading), especially around the Great Lakes, interior New England, the northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest, extending through far western Canada, and over most of Alaska.

In fact, El Niño appears to be the great snowfall suppressor over most of North America.

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DISCLAIMER

The ENSO blog is written, edited, and moderated by Michelle L’Heureux (NOAA Climate Prediction Center), Emily Becker (University of Miami/CIMAS), Nat Johnson (NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory), and Tom DiLiberto and Rebecca Lindsey (contractors to NOAA Climate Program Office), with periodic guest contributors.

Ideas and explanations found in these posts should be attributed to the ENSO blog team, and not to NOAA (the agency) itself. These are blog posts, not official agency communications; if you quote from these posts or from the comments section, you should attribute the quoted material to the blogger or commenter, not to NOAA, CPC, or Climate.gov.