Photo: James Cawley/Getty Images

La Niña Odds Are Below 50% for Winter 25/26, NOAA Says

Originally posted on Powder | By Ian Greenwood | Last updated May 29, 2025 5:36 PM ET

The North American ski season has, for most (but not all!) skiers, ended. The boots, the coats, and the skis have been carefully tucked away by many of their dutiful owners.

Still, with every conclusion comes the promise of a new beginning, and we’d be lying if we said that we aren’t already thinking about the next one.

That entails parsing the movements of every skier’s favorite climatic phenomenon: the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, whose three varying phases can skew where the snow piles up the deepest.

So, what does the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have to say about the ENSO’s current status?

Given the time of year, it’s a bit uncertain. However, according to NOAA’s latest ENSO diagnostic discussion, there is “a 46% chance of ENSO-neutral and a 41% chance of La Niña during November 2025 - January 2026 (chances of El Niño are under 15%).”

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So, as it stands, an upcoming La Niña is kind of likely—the appearance of an El Niño much less so.

This summer, NOAA has a higher degree of confidence that ENSO-neutral will stick around, with the odds pinned at 74%. The release of NOAA’s next ENSO discussion is scheduled for June 12. If all that was Greek to you, here’s a quick primer.

The ENSO’s cool phase, La Niña, tends to, on average, produce cooler and wetter weather in the northwestern reaches of the U.S. (read: more pow). The warm phase, El Niño, does approximately the opposite, delivering wetter, more skier-friendly weather down south, on average. Finally, ENSO-neutral, which occurs when neither a La Niña or El Niño is in effect, doesn’t tip the scales in either direction.

This handy map from NOAA depicts snowfall distributions across every La Niña winter since 1959, up to and including 2024, compared to an average gathered between 1991 and 2020.

There are a few caveats. The ENSO’s signals, while helpful in guessing what a given winter may look like in advance, don’t guarantee weather. Instead, you can think of them like loaded dice, tweaking the powder day odds.

Also, it’s May—if you wanted an exact look at when or where you could score fresh snow seven months from now, you’d need a time machine.

This article first appeared on Powder and was syndicated with permission.

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