New snow on Kibo! Simon Mtuy sent this photo, taken 17 December 2016. He comments: there was considerable rain last night, bringing snow to both Kilimanjaro and Meru; the short rains have started slowly this year.
Stay tuned for an update on snow at the summit. Ablation was greater than normal during October due to the old, low-albedo surface.
[UPDATE 1/3/2017: Telemetry from the summit indicates that snowfall during the 3-4 days prior to this image was the largest event of December. Nonetheless, only ~4 cm was measured at the AWS. Combined with minor events during both the first and last few days of the month, the net change in surface height for December was ~2 cm. The short rains essentially failed to develop during 2016 at the summit...]
