Swiss Glaciers Set to Lose Last Winter's Snow by Monday, Second-Earliest Date on Record

Swiss glaciers will lose all snow and ice accumulated last winter by Monday as a heatwave drives rapid melting across the Alps. The tipping point called glacier loss day arrived on the second-earliest date on record, according to Glamos data. All further melting between now and October will reduce the size of glaciers in the Swiss Alps.

In data going back to 2000, the only earlier occurrence was 26 June 2022. This century the average date has been mid-August. Matthias Huss, head of Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland, said he observed one metre of vertical ice melt on the Rhone Glacier in the ten days before his Friday statement.

Swiss weather stations registered new all-time temperature records during the heatwave. Huss attributed the conditions to a combination of factors. Snowfall this year was 25 percent below the 2010-2020 average.

A warm May caused the snowpack to disappear earlier than usual, and dust from the Sahara arrived in March. Glaciers in the Swiss Alps began to retreat about 170 years ago. The volume of Swiss glaciers shrank by 38 percent between 2000 and 2024.

Switzerland has lost 1,200 glaciers in the past 50 years and now has 1,300 remaining. Huss said that if warming continues at recent rates, only remnants of ice will remain in Switzerland by 2100.