What is La Niña and Has She Arrived?
According to all of the weather experts, we are facing another La Nina for the 2011/2012 winter weather pattern. La Nina is essentially the opposite of El Nino. La Nina exists when cooler than usual ocean temperatures occur on the equator between South America and the Date Line. The name La Nina ("the girl child") or more affectionately called the “bratty little sister” was coined to deliberately represent the opposite of El Nino ("the boy child"). The terms El Viejo and anti-El Nino are also sometimes used. La Nina occurs almost as often as El Nino, but has been lesser known. La Nina and El Nino are but two faces of the same larger phenomenon.
Stronger than usual trade winds accompany La Nina. These winds, from the east, push the ocean water away from the equator in each hemisphere. (This is caused by the rotation of the earth.) Cold water from below rises to replace the warm surface water which has moved away from the equator.
The cool water acts as an impediment to the formation of clouds and tropical thunderstorms in the overlying air. This suppression of rain-producing clouds leads to dry conditions on the equator in the Pacific Ocean from the Date Line east to South America. For a more in depth definition go to; http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/enso/ensofaq.html
So what does this all mean as far as skiing/boarding at Taos Ski Valley for 2011/2012? Well you have lots of options to try to figure it out. Talk to some of the old timers and they will tell you that La Nina means it is typically a dryer than normal season. That must be why TSV received over three feet of snow in October this year. You can also look at the Farmers Almanac, which has been keeping weather stats as long as any of us can remember and is predicting more precipitation in the dessert southwest in November 2011 and January 2012 than normal;
http://www.farmersalmanac.com/long-range-weather-forecast/southwest-us/
You can take a scientific approach and look at the National Weather Service (NOAA) predictions; http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/
There are many other fine sources of useful information. The question is what do you use to plan your next ski trip, whether you should tune/wax your skis, or pack up your swim suit and sandals and go to some tropical location? If you are like me, you will just listen to your spouse, in my case my wife, and go where ever she says we are going. That way you don't have to worry about making any decisions based on something like the weather that is beyond your control.
Have a great La Nina, I know I will.
Douglas Bachtel