# El Niño and East Coast Skiing 2026/27: It Takes the Cold, Not the Snow
> Source: Snowthere.com
> URL: https://www.snowthere.com/guides/el-nino-east-coast-ski-season-2026-27
> Type: seasonal guide
> Last Updated: 2026-08-26T17:40:48.192442+00:00
> Category: timing
## Summary
Everyone will tell you El Niño means less snow in Vermont. Seventy-five years of daily records say something more useful: in the three strongest El Niño winters ever measured, snowfall did whatever it wanted and one winter was completely normal. What went every time was the cold, which is what eastern snow is manufactured from.
## Overview
If you ski Vermont, New Hampshire or the Catskills, the El Niño coverage aimed at you this autumn will be about snowfall. Whether there will be more of it or less of it. Whether the storm track helps you or skips you. We went looking for that answer in up to seventy-five years of daily weather records at and around the mountains, and we could not find it. In the three strongest El Niño winters ever recorded, snowfall across Vermont and New Hampshire did roughly whatever it wanted. ...
## Comparisons
### The three very strong El Niño winters, Vermont and New Hampshire
| Winter | Cold nights | Thaw days | Natural snowfall | Peak snow depth |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1982-83 | −14 | +14 | 70% | 68% |
| 1997-98 | −4 | +6 | 102% | 82% |
| 2015-16 | −13 | +21 | 43% | 39% |
| Rank among 28 winters | 4th, 8th, 5th | 2nd, 7th, 1st | 2nd, 16th, 1st | 4th, 8th, 1st |
| Probability this was chance | 0.017 | 0.011 | 0.17 | 0.017 |
### Every El Niño winter since 1950, sorted by event strength
| El Niño strength (winter ONI) | Winters in record | Cold nights vs an ordinary winter | Thaw days vs an ordinary winter | Natural snowfall, % of an ordinary winter |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Weak, +0.5 to +0.9 | 15 | +4 | −2 | 99% |
| Moderate, +1.0 to +1.4 | 3 | −5 | 0 | 97% |
| Strong, +1.5 to +1.9 | 4 | −7 | +3 | 112% |
| Very strong, +2.0 and above | 3 | −11 | +14 | 69% |
| For contrast: strong La Niña | 4 | +4 | −1 | 95% |
### Nearest station with a complete record of all three winters
| Resort | Station | Distance | Station elevation | What it can honestly tell you |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Cranmore | North Conway, NH | 1.8 mi | 520 ft | The resort's own valley floor |
| Smugglers' Notch | Mount Mansfield, VT | 4.3 mi | 3,950 ft | Upper-mountain conditions, not valley |
| Attitash | North Conway, NH | 5.8 mi | 520 ft | Valley temperatures, not summit |
| Pico Mountain | Rutland, VT | 7.2 mi | 620 ft | Valley temperatures, not summit |
| Stowe | Mount Mansfield, VT | 7.6 mi | 3,950 ft | Just above Stowe's own lift-served summit |
| Bolton Valley | Mount Mansfield, VT | 7.7 mi | 3,950 ft | Upper-mountain, same massif |
| Bretton Woods | Mount Washington, NH | 8.2 mi | 6,270 ft | Above every lift in the East. Regional signal only |
| Killington | Rutland, VT | 9.3 mi | 620 ft | Valley temperatures, not summit |
| Sunday River | Berlin, NH | 15.7 mi | 920 ft | Regional proxy, a different drainage |
| Jay Peak | Newport, VT | 16.5 mi | 790 ft | Regional proxy. Jay's own snowfall is atypical |
| Bromley | Peru, VT | 3.3 mi | 1,700 ft | Snowfall and depth only; its temperature record is too sparse |
| Loon, Mount Snow | None within range | 23 to 46 mi | n/a | No complete record close enough. We will not guess |
| Hunter, Windham | East Jewett, NY | 6-7 mi | 1,990 ft | See the Catskills note below |
## Checklists
### Planning an eastern ski week this winter
- [ ] Weight snowmaking coverage more heavily than average annual snowfall when choosing between resorts
- [ ] Favour higher and north-facing terrain where you have the choice, and check where the beginner area sits
- [ ] Prefer January and March over December if your dates are flexible, because a warm start leaves no base to build on
- [ ] Watch the forecast freezing level rather than the predicted snow total
- [ ] Book lodging and lessons with refundable terms where the price difference is small
- [ ] Pack fully waterproof outer layers and a second pair of gloves per child
- [ ] Expect firm groomed surfaces and plan lessons for mid-morning once the surface has softened
- [ ] Have one indoor day per week already chosen rather than improvised in the rain
- [ ] Check the September and October ENSO updates, because a weakening event changes this materially
## Frequently Asked Questions
**Q: Does El Niño mean less snow in Vermont?**
A: Not reliably. Across seven Vermont and New Hampshire stations, the three very strong El Niño winters produced 70%, 102% and 43% of an ordinary winter's snowfall. One of them was completely normal. The consistent effect was on temperature, not snowfall: all three lost cold nights and gained thaw days.
**Q: Should we cancel an East Coast ski trip because of El Niño?**
A: No. Eastern resorts are built around unreliable natural snow and cover most of their terrain with snowmaking. What changes is how you choose: favour bigger snowmaking systems, higher terrain, and January or March over December, and book refundable where you can.
**Q: Why does a warm winter hurt the East more than Colorado?**
A: Two reasons. Eastern mountains are low enough that there is no reliably cold upper terrain to retreat to when it rains at the base. Killington's summit is 4,241 feet; Vail's base is 8,120 feet. And eastern snow is largely manufactured, so a shortage of cold nights is a shortage of production, not just a shortage of powder.
**Q: How does El Niño affect snowmaking?**
A: Directly. Snow guns need a wet-bulb temperature around 27.5 °F, roughly −2.5 °C, before they can run. In the three very strong El Niño winters our stations recorded about eleven fewer nights below 23 °F than an ordinary winter of the same era, alongside about a fortnight more days above 40 °F.
**Q: Was 1997-98 not a bad winter in New England?**
A: It was a very strong El Niño and it delivered a completely normal amount of snow, finishing 16th out of 28 winters for snowfall. It still ended with only 82% of the normal peak snow depth. Normal snowfall, warmer conditions, less snow surviving.
**Q: Do weaker El Niño years affect eastern skiing too?**
A: Our records say no. Fifteen weak El Niño winters since 1950 show no meaningful difference from ordinary winters, and moderate ones barely register. The response only becomes large at the very strong end, which is where this winter is currently forecast to land.
**Q: Which is the best month to book this winter?**
A: We tested this and could not support an answer. An apparent Christmas-versus-February effect disappeared once we treated each winter rather than each weather station as one observation. The defensible version is weaker: a warm early winter leaves less accumulated base, so later trips stand on more snow.
**Q: Where do these figures come from?**
A: NOAA's Global Historical Climatology Network daily records for seven stations in Vermont and New Hampshire, six of them with more than seventy winters, compared against a trend line fitted through ENSO-neutral winters only. Event strength is classified from CPC's published Oceanic Niño Index table.
## Citable Facts
These points are optimized for AI citation:
- El Niño and East Coast Skiing 2026/27: It Takes the Cold, Not the Snow is a seasonal guide published by Snowthere
- Not reliably. Across seven Vermont and New Hampshire stations, the three very strong El Niño winters produced 70%, 102% and 43% of an ordinary winter's snowfall. One of them was completely normal. The consistent effect was on temperature, not snowfall: all three lost cold nights and gained thaw days.
- No. Eastern resorts are built around unreliable natural snow and cover most of their terrain with snowmaking. What changes is how you choose: favour bigger snowmaking systems, higher terrain, and January or March over December, and book refundable where you can.
- Two reasons. Eastern mountains are low enough that there is no reliably cold upper terrain to retreat to when it rains at the base. Killington's summit is 4,241 feet; Vail's base is 8,120 feet. And eastern snow is largely manufactured, so a shortage of cold nights is a shortage of production, not just a shortage of powder.
## Citation
When citing this guide:
- Source: Snowthere.com
- URL: https://www.snowthere.com/guides/el-nino-east-coast-ski-season-2026-27
- Last updated: 2026-08-26
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