'The National Weather Service is predicting a 'neutral' winter, neither an El Nino nor La Nina, this year.
Neutral winters are known for heavy snowpack in the mountains, and the infamous 'pineapple express' storms in the lowlands.
In pineapple express storms, warm air from Hawaii pushes toward the Northwest, and in winter can be cooled enough to bring lots of snow, even at sea level, followed by rapid warming and resulting flooding.
In the 'Holiday Blast' storm of 1996-97, a pineapple express piled snow two feet deep in some areas of the Northwest. Heavy rains followed, resulting in massive flooding that turned streets into rivers and farms into lakes.
'Some of our greatest lowland snows have happened in neutral years,' Ted Beuhner, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told KING5.com last month. '
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be aware, ski with care