Nick Bond is a University of Washington associate professor of atmospheric sciences who studies the link between ocean and atmosphere. He also serves as the state climatologist for Washington.
Early reports suggest that the winter of 2018/2019 will be a weak to moderate El Niño year. For the Pacific Northwest, that probably means less snow in the mountains than the average.
“El Nino is when the tropical Pacific is warmer than normal, right in a thin strip along the equator, and what happens as a result is there’s a shift in these large clusters of thunderstorms, and that has a ripple effect on the atmospheric circulation over much of the globe, including in our neck of the woods.”
El Niño winters tend to be warmer than normal, especially after January 1.
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