The Seattle Times (September 23, 2014) - Government scientists say exceptionally hot, dry conditions and a lack of insulating snowpack primed Mount Shasta for the massive mudslide that rumbled down over the weekend. Such dry-weather events, known as “outburst floods,” are a common occurrence on Mount Shasta that happen whenever rapid melting causes water to pool behind glacier ice, said Jeffrey Mount, a retired University of California, Davis geologist who is now a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonprofit think tank.