From Flooding to Feet of Pow, Variable Start to Winter 2025/26

Featured Image: Summit at Snoqualmie, WA

This winter has been off to a wild start. By wild, I mean exciting, disappointing, uplifting and debilitating all rolled into one. Paradoxical? Yes. True? Even more so. While the East Coast has seen a near-historic start to the season in certain parts, the Rockies have been dry and the West Coast has recorded mass flooding and over 17" of rain recently in Washington State.

Depending on what region you call home, you've likely experienced this rollercoaster of emotions firsthand. The East saw snow, rain and more snow, while the West had a slow start, followed by recent snow, and is now sitting in what feels like an eternal waiting game.

With the help of the experts at OpenSnow, let's break down the causes for the weather we've seen thus far and the general outlook for the start of Winter 2025/26.

Skiers at Jackson Hole, WY, celebrate a cold and snowy Ski in Jeans Day on December 5, though the excitement was short lived

East Coast

By and large, winter 2025/26 has been good to the passionate skiers out east. Many resorts opened with above-average conditions or found themselves in a snow globe within days of starting the season. Killington, Stowe and Mount Snow have been leading the charge, all of which were able to ski pow from the get-go. Not to mention Jay Peak, Vermont. The beloved ski area recorded a staggering 100" of snow by the end of November.

OpenSnow meteorologist Jay Cordeira has kept a close eye on conditions from Maine to New York and back again, a task that has kept him busy this year. "We have plenty to be thankful for this holiday season, including the massive snowpack across portions of northern New England," Cordeira noted in a December 15 update.

He continued, "I'll take the day off from reminding everyone just how high the season totals are across northern Vermont!" Hell, Boston even picked up a few inches last weekend on December 13, snapping a 300-day snowless streak in the city. It was the third-longest snowless streak for Boston on record. In typical La Niña fashion, cold air and precipitation blessed the East Coast consistently up until recently. The change has been swift as warmer temperatures are rolling in, with NOAA expecting the cold to continue dissipating in the coming days.

The good news is that precipitation is still in the air through the holidays, though snow levels will continue to rise as warm air meets an Alberta-Clipper storm track. These storms tend to be brief, cold and snowy, though how far south that cool air extends remains to be seen. "This pattern should keep New England 'light and active' as we head into the New Year," said Cordeira on December 17. "However, the proximity of all that warm air may mean we have to contend with some rain and mixed events across portions of southern New England."

The bottom line is that, while the weather is changing on the East Coast, a banner start to the season is still cause for celebration. A little rain hurt nobody, and more snow is on its way.

Rockies & West Coast

The tallest peaks in the continental U.S. have had a slow start to the winter. As skiers across Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, California and Oregon and other western states know, dry and windy has been the name of the game the last few weeks with the exception of a couple of good storms.

In the interior of the country, high-elevation resorts like Arapahoe Basin, Telluride, Breckenridge, Aspen and others have continued blowing snow thanks to cool temps, but have seen minimal snow. This has led them to struggle to open ample terrain before the holidays. Utah's Wasatch Mountains have also struggled, with Alta delaying their opening day and each of the four big resorts in Little and Big Cottonwood Canyons operating with under 25% of terrain open.

To the north, Jackson Hole and Grand Targhee have seen some of the most snow in the region by a landslide. Sitting lower than their Idaho counterpart, JHMR saw good snow followed by rain at the start of the month. Grand Targhee, however, has been stacking up snow, with cold fronts and precipitation lining up well on the west side of the Tetons. The resort has nearly 65% of its terrain open already, with over 40 inches of snow expected in the next 10 days.

If Targhee is the success story of the West, Washington and Oregon are the horror stories. A specific type of atmospheric river event, known as Pineapple Express, has brought an onslaught of warm, wet air from the Hawaiian Islands to the Pacific Northwest. The ensuing rain has caused historic flooding throughout Washington State.

But we're not ones to dwell on the past. OpenSnow is calling for colder air to return to the Cascade Mountains in the coming days, so clearly the snow dances are working. OpenSnow meteorologist Luke Stone gave an uplifting report on December 16, noting, "Two significant storms will bring several feet of snow to the Cascades this week, with more storms possible after that."

He continued, "This will be the first significant cold storm cycle of the season and will transform the western Washington resorts over the next week. More storms are possible this weekend and into next week." While there's a lot of ground to make up, skiers in the PNW are no strangers to a rainy start to the season. There's plenty of time for things to turn around this winter, and with areas like Mt. Baker expecting over 70 inches in the next 10 days, stoke remains high.

Good News

While we're focusing on the United States, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention the good snow found in Canada at resorts like Revelstoke, Whitewater, Fernie, Lake Louise and others. Atmospheric river events have brought precipitation while the cold air has been kept south, keeping the skiing in the land of hockey and Tim Horton's excellent.

If you've been scoring good turns out East or in Canada, we tip our cap to you. The rest of us will have to hold out hope. It's not overly optimistic to say the new year could bring favorable conditions to most of North America.

Our holiday wish is for a few pow turns for all who crave it... and a new pair of bindings would be nice, too. Keep on burning skis and doing those snow dances!