If you are a winter mountain sports enthusiast living in the western United States, you are likely aware that it has been a warm, dry season. But how does the winter of 2025/26 stack up against all the others on record? How bad is it, really? I wanted to find out…
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To make this analysis manageable, I’m going to take a few shortcuts. First, I’m focusing locally on the Tetons. Second, I’m using a combination of data from the Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center and the Department of Agriculture’s SNOTEL network. Yes, I should expand the coverage significantly, but this is a fun, fast side quest, not a rigorous analysis of macro weather, so take it with a grain of salt. Third, and finally, the BTAC data only goes back to the mid-70s, while the SNOTEL data technically starts in 1981, but for whatever reason I couldn’t get anything useful until the winter of 1988/89. While this is hardly the kind of sample size I’d want for anything statistically significant, it is still a useful window in the context of our lifetimes. One final side note: this analysis was performed on March 9, so there is still plenty of winter in front of us. Take these findings as preliminary.
Snow Depth
At high elevations, we’re damn near right at the historical average, with Raymer (9,360 ft) sitting at 99% of average snowpack and Rendezvous Bowl (9,580 ft) at 98%. Mid-mountain (8,180 ft) is at 82% of average, but still within one standard deviation of the norm. The base (6,510 ft), however, tells a very different story: a dismal 33% of normal, or 11 inches, which is the lowest number on record in the BTAC dataset.
Cumulative Snowfall
With respect to cumulative snowfall, things look a bit worse up high, with Rendezvous Bowl at 87% of average, Raymer at 78%, Mid Mountain at 69%, and the base at 52%. Interestingly, none of the plots are at record lows, but it’s still not looking good: the base is tied for 48th out of 50 years on record, while Mid Mountain ranks 47th out of 51. Comparing snow depth to cumulative snowfall, one thing should stand out: the snow that has fallen so far this winter has, on average, been heavier.
Temperature
This is really where things start to get weird, and it is the biggest weather story of the season so far. Every month has been warmer than average, and not by a little. November was 8.3 degrees warmer than average, December was the warmest December this SNOTEL plot has ever recorded at +7.5 degrees, January came in at +2.3 degrees, and February was +6.2 degrees. In aggregate, this makes 2025/26 the warmest season the Phillips Ridge SNOTEL plot has ever recorded (thus far).
More than any other factor, temperature accounts for the lack of snow down low and the lackluster skiing and snowmobiling we’ve had so far. It feels like every month this winter has brought a rain event, and those events often made a mess of whatever fresh snow had recently fallen.
My Takeaways
While the data doesn’t fully show it, and while the Tetons are doing significantly better than almost every other mountain range in the West, this is the worst season I’ve seen in roughly 20 years of poking around these parts. But it’s not the worst on record. That distinction, without a doubt, goes to the winter of 1977, when only about 135 inches had fallen at Rendezvous Bowl by mid-March and, supposedly, the Village resorted to downloading skiers via the tram at Tower 2 (or 3? Anyone know?). If you’re interested, I highly recommend Patrick Remington’s blog post about what that winter was like firsthand. In more recent memory, the winter of 2006/07 was also pretty bad, and on a cumulative snowfall basis, worse, with only 300 inches falling total. This winter is close to that one, albeit significantly warmer.
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As I scratched my head over this winter, I also realized that some things just don’t get reflected in the data. For instance, how hard it was to access good snow up high early in the season, how much of our really good terrain never saw enough snow to be skiable or rideable down low, or how often a storm ended with some kind of rain event or rapid warming that essentially nuked whatever snow there was. I also wonder what the plot data would show farther south with respect to snowpack. That might reveal some truly all-time bad conditions.
But what about climate change, Jeff? Isn’t this going to be the new normal? In a word, no, or at least I wouldn’t bet on it. I know we’re a species of pattern-matching apes, look what I’m doing here, and we love to project the future based on whatever is happening now plus whatever we read in the news, but weather is a complex system. Climate change adds uncertainty, and looking at the limited data I have access to, it does appear we’ll likely see less and less snow over time at lower elevations. Still, I’m not convinced this winter is an indicator of some new normal or a long-term trend that defines the rest of our lives. We’ve had a few lean winters, but I’d wager another one like 2023, a record breaker, is due sooner rather than later.
One other point before I call it a night: the snowfall data I’m referring to should be taken with a grain of salt. When you run multiple queries, it becomes obvious that we’ve picked numerous arbitrary starting points over the last 50 years for when we start counting. The earlier years seem to begin when the mountain, JHMR, opened, while the later years seem to begin whenever the marketing department saw snow in the mountains. For instance, we counted 46 inches of snow in the Bowl from some unknown date through November 15. Should we count that? I don’t think so. Most of it melted, after all.
Looking ahead, we are all but certain to break the March temperature record at that SNOTEL plot, with 60s in the forecast next week. Wax those boards, get your swimsuit out, and pretend you’re on spring break. Every season is different, and maybe next year y’all will burn more skis and wash your car more so it actually snows. 🙂