The Wall Street Journal told American skiers Friday that they may have reason to rejoice. A “Super El Niño” could bring heavy snow to Western ski areas coming off a winter when the Rockies got half their usual snowfall. El Niño is an unusual warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean that bends the jet streams steering U.S. weather.
The Journal walked readers through forecasts for Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, California and Idaho, and Ski Utah’s “Vote Super El Niño” yard signs. The Northeast got one sentence: “In the Northwest and Northeast, it may be too warm for significant accumulation.”
So what about Vermont?
Vermont’s last very strong El Niño winter, 2015-16, gives two answers. Mad River Glen opened for 45 days. On 10 of them, the practice slope was the only place to ski.
The skier-owned co-op in Fayston got about 120 inches of snow, roughly half its average, marketing director Eric Friedman told The Ski Diva that May. “We’re going into our line of credit for the first time,” he told Boston.com. On March 12, 2016, the co-op’s board minutes recorded that year-round staff would take a staggered, unpaid one-month furlough. Two days later, the mountain closed for the season.
Killington had the same bad winter and a very different season. It got its lowest natural snowfall ever, 81 inches, and still stayed open into Memorial Day weekend, a 189-day season. By the end, it was skiing on snow it had piled onto its Superstar trail.
Snowmaking made the difference. Snowmaking means spraying water through guns into cold air so it freezes before it lands. That winter, Mad River Glen owned three snow guns. Killington’s system now covers 600 acres of its trails. Under ideal conditions, the resort says, it can put a foot of snow on 45 acres in 24 hours.
Mad River Glen has added snowmaking since then. The co-op has used donations to buy five energy-efficient fan guns, bringing it to seven. In 2024 it upgraded its snowmaking pump, added 25 snow guns on the Mike’s Way trail and laid new pipe. It also added a mid-station to its Sunnyside chairlift so it can run that lift on its snowmaking trails during low-snow periods. Still, the mountain relies mostly on natural snow. The co-op says snowmaking covers 15% of its terrain, and its bylaws restrict snowmaking above 2,300 feet.
This year’s El Niño is at least as worrisome. On Nov. 12, NOAA put the odds above 79% that it stays strong or very strong through March. It put the chance at about 60% that this one becomes the strongest since 1950.
For Vermont, NOAA’s winter outlook favors a warmer-than-average winter, with more precipitation along the East Coast. How much snow reaches Vermont’s slopes will depend on where individual storms track and how much cold air is in place when they arrive. Snowmaking works best in cold, dry air, and the colder it gets, the more snow the guns can make.
History shows how wide the range can be. In three powerful El Niño winters, Burlington’s full-season snowfall ranged from 34.3 inches to 93.9 inches. It measured 80.5 inches in 1982-83, 93.9 inches in 1997-98 and 34.3 inches in 2015-16. The airport’s 1991-2020 normal is 87.5 inches. Those are valley measurements, but they show how much room a November outlook leaves.
Vermont’s alpine areas recorded 4.36 million skier visits last winter, their busiest season since 2014-15. In the lean winter that followed that earlier peak, visits fell by about a third, to 3.22 million. That was the state’s worst season since 1979-80.
If the cold doesn’t come, here’s who feels it first:
Skiers at natural-snow mountains. With snowmaking on just 15% of its trails, Mad River Glen opens most of its terrain only when the snow falls.
Ski area workers. In 2016, Mad River Glen’s seasonal staff lost hours and were laid off early, and year-round staff faced a month of unpaid furlough.
Early-season skiers. Killington began sustained snowmaking Oct. 17 with 165 guns on five trails. Vail’s Stowe, Okemo and Mount Snow are targeting Nov. 21 to open, depending on weather.
For a family planning to ski over Thanksgiving, the question is which trails will be open. During its Killington Cup World Cup races over Thanksgiving weekend, Killington expects to offer only intermediate and advanced terrain. Its beginner trails will likely have to wait until December.