With so much talk about El Niño lately, it is hard not to get excited about the possibilities of an extraordinary winter and a full lake come springtime. With our lake currently almost 13 feet from full and after several winter seasons of very little snowfall, it is encouraging to hear that the current El Niño predictability measure is the highest on record. Anticipation is such that meteorologists are calling this a "Godzilla" El Niño and have even give it the name, "Bruce Lee".
An strong El Niño year would certainly benefit the Big Bear real estate market. More snow means more visitors which means more prospective home buyers. As well, a lake that is full dismisses the unfounded concerns of some home buyers of a disappearing lake.
Ultimately, the Big Bear lakefront real estate market has much to gain from a winter of significant precipitation. With Big Bear lake's water level at the lowest it has been in over a decade, lakefront home buyers have been more tentative than usual to consider waterfront properties, especially shallow water lakefronts. We saw the same trend in the summer of 2004 when our lake was 15 feet from full and lakefront sales stalled. A big winter with substantial snows and rains brought the lake to near full by the following summer and lakefront sales more than doubled in 2005.
(Big Bear Lake experienced a similar situation in 1992 when a lake down 12 feet that August was nearly full 6 months later in February of 1993.)
But we are talking weather here, the epitome of unpredictable. Although there are no guarantees, hope springs eternal for a long awaited snowy winter and a return to a topped off lake in 2016.