From Curbed(!), Nov. 4:
It's been a good start to the week in ski country, with resorts all over the west reporting double-digit snow totals from the most recent storm. No one is happier than skiers in drought-ravaged California, where new snow will allow Mammoth Mountain and Tahoe's Mt. Rose to open this week. It's even snowing in Big Bear, where snowmaking crews have the guns blazing and their fingers crossed. Is this the El Niño present sent from the snow gods after four long years of drought? Not so fast, say two California meteorologists.
Map shows the snowfall earlier this week (multiply by about 10 to convert from liquid water to snow totals). Source: Dr. Andrew Slater via Open Snow
Open Snow meteorologist Bryan Allegretto is just as stoked as the rest of us about all the snow. But he and Reno-based National Weather Service meteorologist Zach Tolby both told the Tahoe Daily Tribune that Tahoe and most of California as a whole won't really see the effects of El Niño until January.*However, should California receive some El Nino relief, combined with with the training of storms typical of the Pineapple Express it would probably justify a repost of "El Niño: "The ARkStorm Scenario Could Flood California's Central Valley Like a Bathtub and Cost $725 Billion"".
More on early-season skiing:El Niño is the strong warm-water mass in the Pacific that can sometimes yield strong winter snow totals, especially in the southern half of the western United States. And there's a good chance that this winter will be a strong El Niño. It just hasn't really gotten going yet. As Tolby told said of Monday's storm, ""I think it's important to understand that every El Niño is different. The correlation with receiving above average precipitation is highest in January through March."...MORE
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