Whatcom photos show these changes in Mount Baker’s ice and snow
Photographs taken recently by Whatcom County residents show dramatic changes on Mount Baker, illustrating the effects of both weather and climate change.
Randy Small, who manages the Whatcom County Weather page on Twitter and Facebook, uploaded a pair of photos taken a month apart, showing how quickly the snow disappeared from Mount Baker this summer.
“I’ve never seen it like this so early,” Small told The Bellingham Herald.
One photo was taken on June 22, just before the June 26-29 “heat dome” sent temperatures into the 90s and above 100 in some places, shattering records at Bellingham International Airport dating to 1949.
A second photo was taken July 27 from the same spot near Hannegan and Beard roads, Small said.
Snowmelt happens every summer on the 10,781-foot volcano that is visible across Whatcom County.
Just not this fast.
Some 704 inches of snow fell during the 2020-2021 season, according to measurements at Mt. Baker Ski Area, and the snowpack was measured at 130% of normal in March.
By July 6, the snowpack was zero — nada, zilch.
“The Twin Sisters look like late August right now,” Small said.
If Small’s photo illustrates the effects of a dry spring and a sudden, intense heatwave, another set of photos show long-term change in the North Cascades.
John Scurlock, an aerial photographer and retired Bellingham firefighter, recently shared to Instagram his images of the Coleman Glacier on Mount Baker’s west flank.
Taken 18 years apart, in July 2003 and July 2021, they show how much the glacier has melted.
“The heatwave was more of a spike. Those photos that I took are more of a reflection on what’s happening over the past 18 years,” Scurlock told The Herald.
