Our city-by-city winter snowfall predictions

It’s that time of year again. I’ve been receiving numerous emails and questions concerning the upcoming winter season. Of course, many want to know how much snow is expected to fall in Coeur d’Alene and other areas, including the mountains.

For many years, Cliff Harris and I have issued our annual city-by-city snowfall predictions for North Idaho and surrounding areas of the Inland Empire.

Last winter, in 2014-15, we measured only 36.5 inches of snow for the season, just over half of the 120-year average snowfall for Coeur d’Alene since 1895 of 69.8 inches.

As Cliff has been mentioning for a long time, “it seems that it’s either feast or famine when it comes to snowfall in the Inland Northwest.” These ‘extremes’ in the amounts of the white stuff usually depend upon the prevailing sea-surface temperature event in the eastern Pacific Ocean waters as well as other weather factors like solar activity, ‘sunspots,’ and the various jet stream flows across the Far West.

Right now, there is a strong El Nino, the warmer than normal sea-surface temperature event, in the waters of the south-central Pacific Ocean. Based on climatology, our region often receives less snowfall than normal as the winters are typically milder than normal and most of the moisture falls as rain or wet snow.

Also, the chances of ice storms increase during an El Nino year and the colder air gets trapped in the lower elevations and much warmer air rides over the top. During an ice storm, as the rain falls from the warmer higher altitudes, it stays too warm when it approaches the ground and does not change to snow. When rain comes in contact with objects below freezing, the moisture quickly changes to ice. Our last major ice storm occurred during an El Nino year in November of 1996. At that time, it was considered to be the worst ice storm in about 60 years. Another big ice storm hit western Washington in December of 1996.

During an El Nino season, we usually receive near to below normal precipitation totals as most of the moisture goes ‘underneath’ us to the south. During the winter of 2009-10, an El Nino year, only a mere 18.4 inches of snow fell.

By contrast, during a very chilly ‘La Nina’ sea-surface temperature pattern in the harsh winter of 2007-08, when there were also very few sunspots, we gauged an all-time record 172.9 inches of snow on Player Drive. The next winter of 2008-09 was the second snowiest on record in Coeur d’Alene with a whopping 145.6 inches.

Those two winters of 2007-08 and 2008-09 back-to-back produced an incredible 318.5 inches of snow in town, more than 100 inches greater than the previous two-year total of 217.6 inches combined in 1915-16 and 1916-17. Cliff and I see a return to this pattern around 2020.

With much warmer ocean temperatures, along with the fact that we’re still seeing near to above normal numbers of sunspots, solar activity, we are calling for a similar season to last year’s snow totals.

1. The area ski resorts should measure between 100 inches at Mt. Spokane to as much as 300 inches of snow at Lookout Pass along the Idaho/Montana border.

2. Priest Lake: 62 to 67 inches.

3. Spirit Lake: 60 to 65 inches.

4. Twin Lakes: 57 to 62 inches.

5. Rathdrum: 53 to 58 inches.

6. Sandpoint: 52 to 57 inches.

7. Wallace: 50 to 55 inches.

8. Hauser Lake: 47 to 52 inches.

9. Kellogg (town): 45 to 50 inches.

10. Hayden Lake (above 2,400 feet): 43 to 48 inches.

11. Athol/Garwood: 40 to 45 inches.

12. Hayden (town): 34 to 39 inches.

13. NW Coeur d’Alene (Cliff’s station on Player Drive): 35 to 40 inches.

14. Fernan Lake: 33 to 38 inches.

15. Dalton Gardens: 32 to 37 inches.

16. St. Maries: 30 to 35 inches.

17. Kalispell, Mont.: 30 to 35 inches.

18. Hope: 28 to 33 inches.

19. Coeur d’Alene (downtown near The Coeur d’Alene Resort): 27 to 32 inches.

20. Post Falls: 25 to 30 inches.

21. Harrison: 24 to 29 inches.

22. Missoula, Mont.: 23 to 28 inches.

23. Spokane (South Hill): 23 to 28 inches.

24. Bayview: 23 to 28 inches.

25. Spokane Valley: 21 to 26 inches.

26. Spokane International Airport: 20 to 25 inches.

As usual, we reserve the right to adjust these seasonal snowfall predictions after we see what happens with the current warm and wet ‘El Nino’ by mid December.

Contact Randy Mann at randy@longrangeweather.com