earlswoody

Thinking of Canada, I know different states have different weather patterns but what is the longest you have had snow on the ground for and cold tempratures in your area....how many months has the weather been wintery is what I want I am asking.

Tangram

The PROVINCES do differ. Here, last year it lasted from November to about May - snow wise.

earlswoody

Seven bloody months you jest

Gremmie

We jest not the last few days we,ve had record temps 18c etc.. today we care expecting 20cm of snow

dbd33

It'll be just slightly less than that around Hamilton but that section of Ontario has a lot of microclimates so it varies almost from street to street.

babsi

Toronto last year the snow started end of November and ended middle of March but it really can vary and last winter there was a lot. It is not uncommon to have snow in April but since I have been here it has never snowed in May.

PaulandNikki

I think we get significant snow every now and then, maybe once or twice a decade (according to the locals, only been here a couple of months so couldn't say and I suspect significant here is still minor compared to the rest of Canada).
Other than that, it's generally wamer than the UK, gets more sunshine and less rain.

Souvenir

Last year, here in the state of Quebec, the daily low dropped below zero in mid-October. The daily high dropped below zero towards the end of November. We had 60cm of snow in November. Then we had some more. All in all, we had 435cm of snow. It stopped snowing on 12 April. I started wearing shorts about four days later and continued to wear shorts until mid-September. They needed a wash.

It felt strange to return to wearing long trousers, shoes, socks even.

R I C H

Snowfall that actually stays on the ground is around late November here (though in '05 we had no visible snow around town at Christmas).

It's pretty much thawed and gone by mid March.

DaveLovesDee

Yet!

Judy in Calgary

Southern Alberta has a phenomenon called the Chinook Wind. It's a warm wind and, when it blows, it raises temperatures and melts the snow. So, Calgary and Lethbridge winters are punctuated by spring-like breaks. The further south in Alberta you go, the stronger the Chinook phenomenon. Lethbridge experiences it a lot, but Calgary experiences it quite a lot too. Up around Red Deer or so, the effect becomes much weaker.

But Calgary is at quite a high elevation. I forget the exact figures. It's something like 1,000 metres above sea level. So it has a montane climate, with unstable weather. It gets warm patches in winter because of the Chinooks but, by the same token, it can get cold snaps during the summer.

Since weather records have been kept, Calgary has had snow on every day of the year (but not all in one year, of course). I personally have experienced snow in Calgary in every month of the year but July.

With that having been said, it seemed to me that Calgary's climate had grown milder in the last handful of years.

Don't get me wrong. There could still be a snap of -30 deg C weather in winter. But it seemed to me that, in the last few years, there had been fewer really cold snaps than I remember two or three decades ago. Perhaps the change is due to global warming.

I arrived in Calgary in 1977 and, except for a four-year break in the late 1990s, lived there until September 2008, when I moved to Vancouver Island.

Coastal British Columbia, where I am now, has a climate that is similar to that of the UK (but with more rain in winter, I'm told).

I suppose you've thought about this a lot and probably already have done some research. But, in case you've missed any pertinent issues, most of them are covered in the Wiki article called Canada versus Australia.

I lived in Melbourne for two and a half years, and absolutely loved it. But then I'm from Swaziland (Southern Africa), so the whole southern hemisphere thing (green Christmases, etc.) felt like "home" to me.

Some British people who get tired of Australia find that moving to the USA or Canada solves the problem for them. Then they're in the northern hemisphere, in synch with their rellies back home, and within a distance of the UK that makes occasional visits back and forth more feasible.

But, for some British people, the move from Australia to Canada still doesn't solve the "problem," and they move on from here (sometimes back to the UK). Like Australia, Canada lacks history and culture (or what feels to many British people like history and culture).
x

Novocastrian

It is (I am reliably informed) a-snowing not in Richmond Hill.

Although it has done twice this year already. Typically (not last year) anything we get before late December disappears again. From Christmas on it's here to stay most years, although there's often a partial thaw sometime or other. It stays (and accumulates) until late March or early April. Then, just when you think it's over, it comes back with a reminder that you shouldn't get complacent... it's only 22 weeks or so until the whole sorry mess starts again.

Hamilton is similar.

Souvenir

That's you application to join the Richmond Lawn Bowling Club gone right down the crapper.

ann m

Now that is a lot in anyone's language or province

Rich_007

8-10 weeks of "real winter", back to the shorts & t-shirt end of Jan. No kidding, eh Steve. <prairie rat>

No doubt as to why I'm so happy here.

R>