The executive director of marketing, sales and communications for Mt. Hood Meadows argues against notion that El Nino activity will hurt upcoming ski season.
BY JACOB PALMER | DIGITAL NEWS EDITOR
The executive director of marketing, sales and communications for Mt. Hood Meadows argues against notion that El Nino activity will hurt upcoming ski season.
In a recent blog post, Dave Tragethon relies on misleading data to suggest that this season could be average, according to the Portland Business Journal.
“The equal use of the 82-83 winter compared with the other El Nino years really makes the conclusions misleading. This also speaks to the difficulty in making confident seasonal climate forecasts based on the expected existence and strength of El Nino, especially for a phenomena as sensitive to weather conditions as snowfall,” said [Paul] Loikith, who will join Portland State University this fall from the the CalTech Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“The amount of snowfall over a winter is also highly sensitive to how much precipitation falls and what the temperature is when the precipitation falls. If the average winter temperature is warmer than average (as it was in 1983), but it is still cold enough to snow during strong storm events, you can end up with lots of snowfall (as in 1983) even though it was a warmer than normal winter,” added Loikith.
You can find Tragethon’s post — complete with an embedded Chris Farley skit — here. It is a valiant attempt at content marketing after two consecutive dismal winters. Then again, who knows? Maybe this season will be like ’82-’83, an El Nino year accompanied by plenty of fresh snow.
