el nino

There are many things that help those living in Lake Tahoe predict what winter will be like: Has the snow in the cross of Mt. Tallac melted? What does the Farmer's Almanac say? Are the squirrels fatter? Is NOAA going to be right in their three-month forecast?

There is no app to give one the perfect insight into what winter has in store and most weather can only be predicted a week out. For generations, people have relied on signs from Mother Nature.

With the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center report released Thursday, it looks like Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada will be warmer than average and experience an average precipitation year.

A mild winter could be in store for much of the United States this winter according to the report. In the U.S. Winter Outlook for December through February, above-average temperatures are most likely across the northern and western U.S., Alaska and Hawaii.

Additionally, a weak El Nino has a 70 to 75 percent chance of developing.

The latest storms to hit the Sierra and Lake Tahoe kept wter content in the snowpack close to average, with some areas of California going above average in the precipitation they've received.

Officials from the Department of Water Resources (DWR) will be making their last monthly snowpack measurement near Sierra-at-Tahoe next week, but electronic readings taken March 22, 2016 show the snowpack is at 92 percent of average.

Most of the ski resorts around the lake, while still below average snowpack, are experiencing the best measured snow in a few years.

The following is the ski, snowboard and weather report for Thursday, February 11, 2016 for South Lake Tahoe brought to you by Lake Tahoe SkiBum.

Weather - South Lake Tahoe will have a high today of 54 and a low tonight of 31. Today: Mostly sunny, with a high near 54. Southwest wind around 5 mph. Tonight: Partly cloudy, with a low around 31. Southwest wind around 5 mph.

The New Year is getting off to a phenomenal start with snow falling at Lake Tahoe. It seems long ago since we’ve had snow around the lake, but as California and Nevada continue to grapple with four years of drought and water shortages, the snow couldn’t be falling at a better time.

The first snowpack survey of the season was taken Wednesday in Phillips, showing the snowpack us at 136% of average with a water content of 16.3 inches.

"This is encouraging but not where we'd like to be," said Frank Gehkre, the Chief Snow Surveyor for the California Department of Water Resources. "This is clearly much better than last year at this time."

One year ago the survey showed the snowpack at 47% of average.

Local Freshies and Beyond Boarding are hosting the U.S. premier of the movie, Northern Grease, at South Lake Tahoe's Himmel Haus on Friday, October 23 at 8 p.m.

Northern Grease is an independent documentary that tells a story of snowboarders and surfers learning the real social and environmental impacts of resource extraction in Northern Canada. The Beyond Boarding crew gives us an in depth look at what’s possible when we all set out to achieve a common goal, no matter what the opposition.

UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC) will host Dr. Kelly Redmond, regional climatologist for the western United States with the Desert Research Institute, on Thursday, October 29, 2015.

As El Niño continues to strengthen in the Pacific the official forecast from the Climate Prediction Center continues to have the odds slightly tilted towards above average precipitation for southern and central California.

The forecast also has the odds slightly tilted towards warmer than average temperatures during the winter.

Additional seasonal forecast from the Climate Prediction Center can be found HERE.

Experts warn of a Godzilla El Niño this fall.

So, what exactly is a "Godzilla" El Niño?

Actually, it’s just a clever joke by a NASA climatologist: "This definitely has the potential of being the Godzilla El Niño," Bill Patzert of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, California, said Thursday.

What's It Look Like?

"Godzilla" El Niño is not a technical or scientific term, but it's a good way to describe the upcoming El Niño event, because it could likely be one of the strongest since record-keeping began in 1950.

Chances of an El Niño bringing a badly needed wet winter to California have gone up, the National Weather Service said Thursday.

According to scientists, there’s a better than 90 percent chance the weather pattern often associated with plentiful rain will hit in the fall, and an 85 percent chance it will hang around through the end of the year.

Those predictions are up from May, when scientists said an El Niño — which involves the warming of tropical waters in the Pacific — had an 80 percent chance of sticking around into the winter.

Just when everyone had pretty much written it off, the El Niño event that has been nearly a year in the offing finally emerged in February and could last through the spring and summer, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday.

This isn’t the blockbuster, 1998 repeat El Niño many anticipated when the first hints of an impending event emerged about a year ago. This El Niño has just crept across the official threshold, so it won’t be a strong event.