Official NSAA Data Reveals Insights into 2025–26 Season and Drop in Pacific Northwest Skier Visits

It’s no surprise that where there’s snow, people flock to ski hills. Where there’s not snow, skier visits drop.

The definitive data for the 2025–26 ski season in North America reveals a coastal divide. When the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) finalized its comprehensive Kottke End-of-Season Study in August, the dataset confirmed that the total number of U.S. skier visits fell 14.5 percent from 61.6 million in 2024–25 to 52.6 million visits. While the Northeast and Southeast regions celebrated a strong snow season and upticks in skier visits, the broader data highlights weather volatility across the country. All three western regions reported declines. However, the shift was most acutely felt in the Pacific Northwest. According to the report schema, which isolates the region strictly to Washington’s 16 resorts and Oregon’s 11 resorts, the territory experienced a 12-month climate whiplash. The winter prior, a historic snow cycle helped drive the PNW to a record high of 4.7 million visits. This August, the report confirmed regional visits fell by 35 percent to 3.2 million visits, marking the lowest regional total in the country.

• Related: Revenge of the East: Vermont Nearly Tied With Utah in Skier Visits During the 2025-26 Season

The Science: The ‘Warm Snow Drought’ Mechanism

To understand why the Pacific Northwest suffered such a severe drop in skier visits, look directly at the winter temperatures. The U.S. Forest Service formally classified the season as a “warm snow drought.” Unlike a standard dry winter—where a lack of moisture leaves the mountains bare—overall precipitation across November and December was actually close to historical averages. The season failed because a record-warm January was followed by intense rainstorms in February.

Because the winter air was so warm, the traditional freezing line was pushed thousands of feet up the mountains. Instead of falling as snow, storms delivered heavy rain directly onto the lower elevation ski runs, washing away the base. Data from the USFS shows that by February 1, Oregon logged its lowest snowpack levels since continuous tracking began in the 1980s. Because there was no winter snowpack to melt slowly into the ground come spring, the lack of runoff worsened ongoing, multi-year droughts across eastern Washington and northern Idaho.

The Cross-Border Mirror: B.C.’s Southern Interior

The warm Pacific atmospheric ridge that stifled the Cascades pushed across the 49th parallel. It steered storms directly into British Columbia’s southern interior ranges: the Monashees, Okanagans, and Selkirks. While the higher, colder Canadian Rockies around Banff and Lake Louise dodged rain in favor of low-density powder snow, the lower-elevation Okanagan Valley felt the brunt of the warm systems.

Data from a CBC News British Columbia report provides empirical evidence of this cross-border mirror. Environment Canada verified that while the Okanagan normally averages 24.3 inches [61.6 cm] of snow each winter, it recorded an average of only 5.5 inches [14 cm] by mid-winter. This historic lack of Valley snow directly impacted local winter recreation, forcing the Telemark Nordic Club in West Kelowna to close mid-winter for the first time in its 48-year history. Board president Brent Hobbs described it as an unprecedented year. The club’s typical 17,000 seasonal visits fell to under 3,000 visits.

From Historic Drought to Super El Niño

Nationally, though snowfall finished 33 percent below the 10-year average, the decline in resort operating days was comparatively modest. This resilience is a result of capital investments in modern infrastructure, such as high-efficiency snowmaking systems that maximize short thermal windows. The NSAA data also notes that multi-mountain and season passes made up 49 percent of skier visits nationally. Multi-resort passes alter skier behavior during low-snow cycles by allowing skiers to pivot away from a struggling home region and travel to where the best snow is. This dynamic accelerated the regional traffic redistribution tracked in the Kottke report.

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Recent metrics from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center September ENSO Update indicate that equatorial sea surface anomalies are 2°C above average. Forecasters state there is a greater than 90 percent certainty of a “Super El Niño” dominating the upcoming winter weather patterns. While a moderate El Niño typically brings warm, dry air to the Pacific Northwest coast, historical mountain data shows that extreme “Super” variations can flip the script. When equatorial warming peaks at this extreme threshold, the altered trajectory of the jet stream can push heavier snowfall totals directly into higher-elevation terrains.

• Related: El Niño 2026-27 Ski Forecast September Update: Colorado Gets an Early-Season Upgrade and California Holds Its Ground

Historically, regional data regarding these extreme ocean-warming systems points to a pattern of macro-climatic elasticity. Every exceptionally low-snow winter in the PNW over the last 30 years—specifically the benchmark low years of 1995, 2004, and 2014—has been followed by a rebound season that frequently doubled the previous winter’s snowfall totals. Ultimately, every season is unique, and winter’s fate is never written in September. A “Super” El Niño does not guarantee a total bust. The pendulum swings, and the Cascades could easily end up with a stable snowpack and a solid 2026–27 ski season.