El Niño '23/'24 Forecasts Are Exhausting

It's that time of the year. Ski movie tours are ramping up, the snow's starting to fly, and everyone, from the guy you met in undergrad who took Meteorology 100 to actual, legit scientists, is speculating on what this upcoming winter will look like weather-wise.

That last part -- the weather part -- is the most important. We skiers are understandably weather and storm-obsessed folk, always curious about where the storms will or won't hit, now enthralled by the deluge of long-term winter forecasts that populate the airwaves each fall.

As a ski writer, I'm stuck in the eye of this forecasting storm. And you know what? I'm exhausted. I've come down with a seasonal ailment -- I'm sick of hearing about El Niño.

El Niño means powder for the East Coast! El Niño will cause warm and dry conditions in the West! El Niño means that there will be more wildfires this summer!

Honestly, I made those examples up, but this much is clear: this fall, it's all El Niño, all the time. I half expect to wake up tomorrow and read an article titled: "El Niño Doesn't Think Tax Evasion Is 'That Big Of A Deal.' Here's Why."

My constant exposure to long-range forecasts may make my El Niño-itis more acute than the average skier. To feed the news algorithm, I've spent the past month tearing through these forecasts on a near-daily basis as I try to balance their contradictions, leaving me in a never-ending state of weather confusion.

Still, I can only assume I'm not alone. While my immersion in skiing and ski news is somewhat unique, this whole El Niño business is non-stop -- you'd have to live under a rock not to know that an El Niño is underway.

Making matters worse, these forecasts breed cognitive dissonance. For example, the Old Farmers' Almanac seems to think Montana, where I live, will be cold and snowy. NOAA says the opposite. And that's only two of the hundreds of El Niño forecasts available online.

Who am I supposed to believe? Obviously, I'm inclined to lean towards the forecasters who say it will snow in Montana. But try as I might, doubt always creeps in as images of snowless hillsides promised by NOAA populate my vision, leaving me more stressed than I would care to admit.

It's tough being a skier. We take a lovely season like fall -- with its pumpkin spice lattes and shimmering multi-color leaves -- and turn it into the most anxiety-inducing time possible. Somewhere along the way, pre-winter stoke was traded for FOMO, leaving us vulnerable to forecasts that either confirm or deny our worst fear: a snowless ski season.

Perhaps that's why articles about El Niño go huge and thus reinforce the firehouse of weather content in the ski media space. Skiers can't help but look ahead, which is a blessing and curse. We're always thinking about the next ski trip, the next ski season, the next pair of revolutionary skis, or the next storm. Above all, we want to know what's around the corner, and El Niño forecasts slot perfectly into this blind spot.

Now is where I should neatly tie up my thoughts with an all-too-obvious antidote to the El Niño insanity: Tired of buying into our subcultural obsession with long-range winter forecasts? Try being present. Call your mom. Get in the flow state. Slowly enjoy that pumpkin spice latte instead of slurping it down like your life depends on it. And maybe get a therapist, too.

Although that's a cop-out, and we both know it. Boilerplate self-help suggestions will only get you so far in the face of the all-consuming El Niño. As for the solution I actually stand by -- buy a box of sand and do your best ostrich impression. El Niño can't get you if you have sand in your eyes.

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