One Killed, One Injured by Avalanche in Mt. Baker, WA Backcountry Yesterday

Very little is currently known about this avalanche thus far.  We know that 2 snowmobilers/skiers were caught in an avalanche on Mt. Hermon, WA, just outside the boundaries of Mt. Baker ski resort.  One of them was injured, one of them was killed.  Preliminary reports make it sound like they were using snowmobiles to ski and were skiing at the time of the accident.

8 people were killed in avalanches in the past week in the USA.

“This weekend’s fatalities bring the Jan US total to 10 killed. That is by far the worst January since 2001.” – Spencer Logan, CAIC

Here is what has been published about yesterday’s Mt. Baker backcountry avalanche:

“We are deeply saddened to report that there was an avalanche fatality near Mt Baker today. At this time, we have very few details. We will be investigating in the morning. Our thoughts go out to friends and family of the victim.

This marks the 7th avalanche death in the US in the last week alone. Please help us keep this number from growing!” – Northwest Avalanche Center, yesterday

Conditions at Mt. Baker ski area have been snow and rain adding stress to the snowpack:

“If you were fortunate enough to get up to Baker earlier in the week, you got some good conditions!  However, the last few days were not too awesome annnnnd included some rain.  Mother Nature can’t always be as amazing as she was last month and the rain turned to snow on Saturday so there’s a new dusting to enjoy.” – SnowBrains, see full conditions report here:

Mt. Baker Conditions Report

This weekend’s fatalities bring the Jan US total to 10 killed. That is by far the worst January since 2001. Median fatalities in Jan are 4, interquartile range 6 to 2.

It’s the third worst month since 2001, with only Feb 2014 (12) and Feb 2012 (13) having larger per-month counts. Those two months are outliers, and contribute to Feb having the highest number of fatalities per month. Those two seasons also had the highest number of fatalities since 2001, 35 and 34 respectively.
-Spencer Logan