Fatality at Muir

8pm thru midnight...temps drop below 10 degrees with sustained winds at 60 mph. 

We met some people that camped in Glacier Basin (~6500ft) yesterday, and they said winds overnight were blowing at ~60MPH, and two tents collapsed. Pretty unusual for that elevation I would think...

Telemetry recorded a max wind of 71 mph at 1700 hrs. The wind chill temp would would have been -20F with frostbite occurring after 30 minutes exposure. www.nws.noaa.gov/om/windchill/index.shtml
They suffered through a long night...amazing that two survived.

Was this a surprise weather hit, or had it been forecasted accurately? I hadn't read the weather for up there being as I was planning on working...just curious if anyone has the archived weather forecast as opposed to what the telemetry says...

Some friends of mine were up at muir about 10 years ago and were about to begin skiing down into the cloud, when the rangers wouldn't let them, they pulled them back with the weather brewing and made them spend the night (probably under STRONG suggestions). I don't know the three involved, but it would seem that you'd have to be pretty confident in your skills to leave Muir into the weather like that, As has been stressed for a while, Amar's story, sometimes it's best to wait it out even though you weren't intending than to brave the conditions and risk more.
If i were in a situation where i wasn't equiped to spend a night, i'd probably shrug off nasty weather and start down too, i really need to start learning from others mistakes(unfortunate, but they make "Accidents in N. America 20xx" every year) and sit tight. Scary idea though.

TEMPERATURE AND WIND FORECASTS FOR SELECTED LOCATIONS.                         
                                    MON      MON      T UE        TUE        WED                               
                                                 NIGHT                  NIGHT         
SUMMIT   (14411 FT)         7        -6            6             8            10                       
                                    W 51     NW 45   NW 39     N 30       N 28   

CAMP MUIR(10188 FT)     24        11           21           26           28                       
                                   W 44     W 42       NW 31     N 27        N 27 

This forecast was issued Monday morning.  Recorded winds were considerably higher than what was forecasted.

My thoughts go the family of the deceased and I wish the survivors a speedy recovery and prehaps now is not the time to criticize them without hearing their story
but,
the forecast was well known and there where extensive warnings on all the sites , NOAA etc. and on the radio and TV reports. The forecast may have been for 45 instead of 60 MPH but based upon what I saw, I would not have gone to Muir on that day.