Anthony Lakes confident in a successful season, despite warm January forecast
By Joe Hathaway on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2024 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
BAKER/UNION COUNTIES — Warm weather and lackluster snow conditions have been causing headaches for many of Oregon’s ski resorts.
Anthony Lakes Mountain Resort recently closed for four days because of the poor skiing conditions. Other resorts such as Mt. Bachelor in Bend and Mt. Hood’s two resorts have also experienced challenging starts to the season due to low snowpack.
And it may not get better.
The National Weather Service (NWS) is predicting a 50% likelihood that temperatures in eastern Oregon will remain above average through January.
“The impact on snowpack in Oregon is less certain. At any time during the winter, if a cold outbreak happens to coincide with the arrival of a storm system, a snowstorm can result,” said Erica Grow Cei, Public Affairs Specialist for NWS. “However, with temperatures likely to be above average in January, a cold snap is less likely to happen.
But managers at Anthony Lakes say they’ve seen warm patterns at the start of the new year before and are confident that the resort’s high base elevation (above 7,000 feet) in the Elkhorn Mountains will help maintain the snowpack.
“The base we’re sitting on is in great shape and while we’re not making epic powder turns yet, we’re hopeful that it will be soon,” said Chelsea Judy, Marketing Director for Anthony Lakes. “We saw this same weather pattern in the winter of 2019/2020 and it was about a week into the new year that we received a 16″ dump followed by another 74″ that January. So, anything is possible!”
The NWS says the culprit of this winter’s warmer weather is El Niño, an atmospheric phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean that leads to warmer, drier winters in the Pacific Northwest.
“The current El Niño was declared in June 2023 and is expected to last through the Spring of 2024,” said Cei. “But our experts at the Climate Prediction Center now believe that El Niño conditions have peaked, and we may enter ENSO Neutral (neither above nor below average temperatures in the equatorial Pacific) by the April/May/June 2024 time frame.”
Chelsea Judy at Anthony Lakes says they’re not deterred and look forward to Old Man Winter bringing fresh powder.
“Anthony Lakes is excited to continue skiing/riding this season in the Elkhorns and of course, we’ll keep doing our snow dances!” said Judy.
