TOROTNO - Ruined outings and cold that set teeth clattering even as Arctic ice disappeared at alarming rates gave Canadians more than their share of weather-related reasons to grumble over the past year.

At the top of Environment Canada's list of Top 10 Canadian weather stories for 2008 released Tuesday was the rain that never seemed to let up in eastern Canada this summer.

Sarnia, Ont., for example, didn't have a single dry day in July, while thunderstorms rattled Hamilton on 28 days in the summer, well above the average of 16 days.

Toronto set a record for summer rain -- with three weeks left in the season -- while celebrants to Quebec City's 400th anniversary bash endured almost 50 centimetres over the summer and August was Charlottetown's wettest-ever month.

Montreal saw just two dry weekends in the 16 between May and September, seven of them total washouts.

"I don't think I've ever heard any more complaining about the weather from so many people," said David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada.

"It was just a soggy and soppy wet summer and . . . Canadians, particularly in the East, were feeling that they were owed some good weather and they didn't get it."

The constant wet made for a terrible farm season: Hay growing was ruined, potato blight emerged and farmers across Atlantic Canada waded through ankle-deep muck.

The rain, however, did mean lush lawns, fewer forest fires and fewer smog days and Canadians were at least spared deadly tornadoes, hurricanes and drought.

In the North, the continuing thinning of Arctic ice in 2008 was "more shocking and worrisome" than in 2007, Environment Canada said in picking the story as No. 2, down from top spot a year ago.

"In many ways, it may be the story of the century," Phillips said.

"Nobody predicted this disappearance of the ice at the top of the world so rapidly."

Environment Canada said satellite imagery from August showed sea ice declining at a rate of almost 85,000 square kilometres per day -- up sharply from 63,000 a day in 2007 -- despite coming after the coldest winter in eight years.

The year also saw both the deep-water routes of the Northwest Passage over North America and the Northeast Passage over Russia free of ice for the first time.

The ancient ice shelves on Ellesmere Island, which covered 9,000 square kilometres a century ago, now cover just 1,000 square kilometres.

"The map of Canada is changing at the top of the world," Phillips said.

The unprecedented shrinkage is blamed on years of winds pushing old ice into the Atlantic along with year-round warming in the North.

One of the longest and snowiest winters in years buried much of Quebec and Ontario, making the year's No. 3 spot.

The nation's capital was covered in white for 143 straight days that ended only in mid-April, although the 432 centimetres of snow came up just shy of the record set in 1970-71. Montreal also just missed breaking its snowfall record.

The result, besides strained backs and sore shovelling muscles, was a series of roof collapses, including one in Morin Heights, north of Montreal, that killed three women.

Other noteworthy weather events included spring flooding along the entire length of New Brunswick's Saint John River that caused about $50 million in damage.

A late-year entry was the bitter cold that gripped the country in the second week of December -- a full week before the official start of winter -- following an unusually mild November and early December.

The low of -36 C on Dec. 14 made Edmonton colder than the North Pole, while Key Lake, Sask., recorded the coldest temperature in the country at -42 C.

Even British Columbia wasn't spared, with frigid air shattering 85 temperature records -- some that had stood for more than a century -- in just two mid-December days.

Duncan and Nanaimo were buried in 50 centimetres of snow, one of the heaviest snowfalls in six decades

"Even in Canada, the snowiest and second coldest country in the world, it's rare for the entire country to be blanketed in snow and engulfed in cold Arctic air -- all before the first full day of winter," Environment Canada said.

Here are Canada's Top 10 weather events for 2008:

1. Rain makes for a soggy summer from Newfoundland to Ontario.

2. Ice loss in Arctic continues at unprecedented rates.

3. Ontario, Quebec endure one of the longest, snowiest winters in years.

4. New Brunswick sees worst spring floods in 35 years along Saint John River.

5. Extreme cold grips Canada in second week of December.

6. Summer hail storms mash crops in British Columbia, the Prairies, Ontario and Quebec.

7. Massive March snow storm dumps up to 50 centimetres of snow across eastern Canada.

8. Hurricane season leaves Atlantic and eastern Canada wind-whipped and wet.

9. January temperatures dip to -40s across Prairies and the North.

10. Ice storms in January and February cripple Prince Edward Island.

Source: Environment Canada