the east and more moderate conditions to the 
west. Wintry weather persisted in the north 
well into June, with substantial snow cover 
remaining until mid-month.” Still farther 
west, in British Columbia, “June began sea- 
sonably warm but became unsettled by mid- 
month, [and] this cool, showery pattern con- 
tinued until mid-July, when summer finally 
arrived. In fact, July ended up being one of 
the three hottest on record for many British 
Columbia locations, with the last week being 
particularly scorching,” according to Chris 
Charlesworth. 
The northern tier, from Greenland to Alas- 
ka, saw a very late arrival of warm weather in 
the east, -with cold persisting in Nunavut and 
adjacent areas well into June but July (and 
into August) much warmer than average 
(Figure 1), a “relatively normal” summer in 
Yukon and southern Northwest Territories, 
and a warmer- than-average summer in Alas- 
ka that “banished memories of the cold and 
wet conditions that dominated [the state] in 
summer 2008,” according to Thede Tobish. 
For many northerly breeding species, then, 
the summer’s nesting scorecard seemed most 
favorable from the western half of the conti- 
nent (“a generally quick and probably suc- 
cessful nesting season” in Alaska) and 
mixed, or even dismal, from Hudson Bay 
eastward: “Observers in Nunavut told con- 
sistent tales of very late arrivals, delayed 
nesting, or failure to nest in many species,” 
writes Cameron Eckert. In northern Ontario, 
David Elder indicates that Snow Geese on 
Hudson Bay did not breed, and to the north 
at Churchill, Koes and Taylor write that 
Figure 1 (top). The summer period (here, June through August) 
in 2009 in Canada was 0.4° C above normal on the national lev- 
el, but the center of the country continued cooler, just as it had 
in spring 2009. The effect on nesting birds in western Hudson 
Bay, particularly waterbirds, was devastating, but even in the 
eastern Arctic, where July warmed quickly, the "spring" may 
have arrived too late to allow a successful nesting season for 
many species. Map courtesy of and © Environment Canada/ 
Environnement Canada. 
Figure 2 (bottom). The Canadian summer of 2009 was rainy in 
the southeastern reaches of the country but rather dry in the 
northeast and southwest (this map illustrates precipitation from 
June through August). Although the dark brown tones of this 
map between Hudson Bay and Baffin Island may look ominous, 
this region gets much less precipitation than does southern 
Canada, such that "a percent departure in the north represents 
much less difference in actual precipitation than the same per- 
centage in the south," according to Environment Canada. Map 
courtesy of and © Environment Canada/Environnement Canada. 
TEMPERATURE DEPARTURES FROM NORMAL 
Summer (Jun, Jul, Aug) 2009 
ANOMALIES DE LA TEMPERATURE PAR RAPPORT A LA NORMALS 
Ete (Juin, Juil, Aout) 2009 
°c 
— 2.5 
1.5 
— 0.5 
— -0.5 
1.5 
-2.5 
— - 3-5 
PRECIPITATION DEPARTURES FROM NORMAL 
Summer (Jun, Jul, Aug) 2009 
ANOMALIES DES PRECIPITATIONS PAR RAPPORT A LA NORMALS 
Ete (Juin, Juil, Aout) 2009 
VOLUlWE 63 (2009) 
NUMBER 4 
551 
