What has become the biggest snow business marketing buzz in decades, La Nina’s cycle is pretty much over. Here in Fernie, throughout BC and especially in the Southern US–snow levels are well below average. So what about all the hype; just marketing and hope that Mother Nature will deliver another epic snow year like last season.
Powder Matt, Fernie Alpine Resorts Calgary based spin doctor, has this to say about Fernie:
“La Niña has delivered snow to Fernie Alpine Resort and it currently has the most ski runs and snow in the Rockies. “With continued recent snow-storms, the skiing and riding conditions are excellent” says Matt Mosteller “The famous 5 Alpine Bowls and over 2500 acres of skiing is here, ready and waiting for you to enjoy right now” added Mosteller. Fernie Alpine Resort has had just over 7 feet of snow this season!”
Fernie traditionally has more snow that any other ski hill in the Rockies and this year is looking just that, average. With the snow pack in regression as it settles and 15cm in the last two weeks we are in desperate need of snow. And where is La Nina? Well she is pretty much gone as reported here from NASA:
La_Nina Normalizing surface water temperatures indicate the end of this La Nina cycle.
The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California report this long La Nina cycle is pretty much over. We are now entering a period of relative stability where we can expect most location forecasts hovering around their historical averages. This should come as a relief in many parts of the world, for this La Nina season was one of the most active on records.
What is La Nina?
La Nina is basically the opposite of her big brother El Nino does. El Nino is known for bringing hotter temperatures, droughts, calmer trade winds, warmer waters, ocean current changes and even fish kills. La Nina, on the other hand, brings a more active weather climate to our planet. In a La Nina cycle, like the one we are currently leaving, you can expect longer winters, cooler temperatures, heavier snowfall, more rainfall, longer monsoon seasons, more active hurricane – tropical cyclone season, more tornadoes and wide spread flooding. Do any of these extreme weather phenomena sound familiar to you?
Over the past couple of years since we have been in this La Nina cycle we have seen hurricanes reaching as far north as Canada, typhoons reaching Australia. All over the world we have seen heavy rain and snow fall causing heavy flooding from Pakistan to Austrailia to South America to Canada and the USA. In North America we have recently experienced record flooding along the Mississippi in the US south, the Richelieu River in Quebec, most recently along the Souris River where the town of Minot ND took heavy damage and currently in the Peace River district in north east British Columbia were a state of emergency has been declared.
Though, with the news that we are just about out of this La Nina cycle and into a neutral period, we should not expect that severe weather won’t occur. There will still be adverse weather of the likes of a flood, hurricane or a drought in some part of the world, but these weather extremes won’t be on such a wide spread scale or last as long that are typical in a El Nino – La Nina weather cycle.
Since the discovery of the El Nino – La Nina – Southern Oscillation climate phenomena, meteorologists and climatologists have been better able to predict very long term weather conditions as much as a season to a year into the future. However, El Nino – La Nina is not the only long range adverse weather cause or indicator, but it is the biggest and it enables us to provide better weather forecasting.
