January 15, 2021: Is this season any worse so far?
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While December got the season off to a rough start, especially in Colorado, the number of fatal accidents is neither worse nor better than the average over the past 10 year.
The number of fatal incidents is 5, vs. an average of 5.1. Four seasons were worse, four were better and 2 were they same. (The average is skewed just slightly higher by 7 incidents in the 2015-16 season.)
The number of fatalities is 6, which is just slightly higher than the average of 5.4. Most incidents involved one fatality so most years have the same number of incidents as deaths. This season one incident had 2 deaths. The average of the past 10 years is skewed up a bit from 5 based on last season (2019) which included an in-bounds ski area accident with 3 fatalities.
We can't really compare non-fatal accidents. Many are reported but we don't know how many are not. So this is based solely on the number of fatal incidents and fatalities, which are complete data sets.
The numbers typically increase a lot during the following month or so and we can't make any predictions about what will be yet. However, the season has not been more deadly than average so far as of January 15.
Full size graph, pop-up
While December got the season off to a rough start, especially in Colorado, the number of fatal accidents is neither worse nor better than the average over the past 10 year.
The number of fatal incidents is 5, vs. an average of 5.1. Four seasons were worse, four were better and 2 were they same. (The average is skewed just slightly higher by 7 incidents in the 2015-16 season.)
The number of fatalities is 6, which is just slightly higher than the average of 5.4. Most incidents involved one fatality so most years have the same number of incidents as deaths. This season one incident had 2 deaths. The average of the past 10 years is skewed up a bit from 5 based on last season (2019) which included an in-bounds ski area accident with 3 fatalities.
We can't really compare non-fatal accidents. Many are reported but we don't know how many are not. So this is based solely on the number of fatal incidents and fatalities, which are complete data sets.
The numbers typically increase a lot during the following month or so and we can't make any predictions about what will be yet. However, the season has not been more deadly than average so far as of January 15.
Full size graph, pop-up
