How much will it snow this year? What is the Utah snow forecast for the 2012-2013 ski season? These are questions that gets asked early and often to me starting about this time of every season. If you love snow and skiing powder as much as I do this is a question that cannot be taken lightly. 😉 With that being said, let’s be honest us weather guys have a hard predicting the weather for tomorrow. Thus when talking about how much snow will fall 4 months from now…. You get the point.

So I’m going to give it a college try at predicting how this year will play out. If nothing else, it will be fun for everyone to go back and see how poor my forecasting skills are.

First, a little history about the past two winters. A lot people get caught up in La Nina or El Nino. We have to be very careful when forecasting based upon those two variables. The past two seasons were both La Nina years. However they played out incredibly different in regards to snow. 2010-2011 was a record setting snow year and 2011-2012 was one of our lightest years on record. So what gives? If you can find out let me know. All we do know is there are many variables when it comes to forecasting, especially in the mountains.

On to my first attempt at the Utah snow forecast for the 2012-2013 ski season and what El Nino might mean for us. Generally speaking in an El Nino year the southwestern US does better than the northwestern US. Also El Nino winters generally start later and last a bit longer here in Utah. So for Park City and the surrounding ski areas what does that mean? Well the further north you go, (Powder Mtn, Snowbasin, etc) the better the chance of lighter than average snow year. The further south you go (Park City, Deer Valley, Canyons, Sundance, Brian Head) the better chance of above average snowfall.

Thus for my end of August first shot at the 2012-2013 Utah snow forecast… I think we end up with average to a little above average snowfall this year. For the Park City area resorts that means 350-375 inches of snow. (Now I am really sticking my neck out)

I will continue to update the Utah snow forecast as we get closer to the ski season. Until that time keep the snow dances going across the world.

To leave you with one last thought, there are many forecast maps that different weather services have been coming out with. The one below seems to be most fitting:

Thanks for reading this post and if you have any questions about the Park City-Wasatch Front real estate market please me know.