Another wet season fails

In the last 10 years on the Northern Icefield, the "long rains" have ended by the first of June. If this holds true for 2009, a second consecutive wet season has failed. The 12-month interval prior to 1 June has been the "driest of the century" by far, with a net glacier-surface lowering of 1.3 meters at the weather station. As this volume of ice has evaporated and melted, dust has been concentrating at the surface, augmenting that present before the late-2006 snowfalls. And with snowfall unlikely over at least the next 4 months, the rate of ice loss could exceed that ever witnessed.