VIDEO: Everest, Weather and the Jet Stream

If you're interested in how the weather comes into play at Everest, this video offers some really fabulous information. It is a conversation between Alan Arnette, an experienced mountaineer, with a meteorologist who covers Everest. It is about 15 minutes long, longer than most of the videos I've shared but if you are interested in more detail, I think it is really interesting.

Quick notes if you don't want to watch it, and some background on the things he mentions: 

• He says that there's a 10-day "summit-able" weather window right now.
• Teams are doing work to acclimatize. If they are far into their acclimatization process, the possibility exists for the weather to be great for a summit attempt right now. At first glance, most teams don't appear to be acclimitized enough to try yet.
• There has been a lot of conjecture about how busy the season would be this year. Many suspected that numbers would be way down because Nepal was unclear about how they were going to implement COVID restrictions. That has not turned out to be the case. Nepal has issued a record number of Everest permits this year. It is busy up there.
• In addition to the number of people on the mountain, the other thing that determines whether the mountain is "crowded" is the weather. In 2018, there was a 10-day window of great weather which meant there was time to space out the teams. In 2019, there were three days. It isn't hard to see how that impacts the crowding issue. In this interview they are discussing the potential for some teams to take advantage of this current window; hence, cutting down on the later crowds.