Manitobans shouldn’t apologize for their weather, they should brag about it, says David Phillips, Environment Canada’s senior climatologist.
Sure, Winnipeg is one of the world’s coldest cities with a population of 600,000, but the city and province have a lot of good weather, Phillips told the Harvest Gala in Winnipeg Oct. 15.
When compared to Canada’s nine other provinces and three territories Manitoba has:
- The cleanest air year round.
- Second-sunniest winters and springs on average behind Saskatchewan.
- The fewest foggy days behind the Yukon and Alberta.
- More sunny days than 10 other Canadian provinces and territories.
- Fewer thunderstorms than Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan.
- British Columbia and all provinces to the east of Manitoba get more snow.
- Every province to the east of Manitoba gets more freezing rain.
- Only Yellowknife has sunnier springs than Manitoba.
- Only nine cities have more sunshine year round than Winnipeg.
- Twenty-four other Canadian cities are colder year round than Winnipeg and 13 are colder in the winter, including Timmins, Prince Alberta, Fort McMurray and Yellowknife.
- Winnipeg has the most humidity of cities west of Sault Ste. Marie.
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“But it’s not bad humidity,” Phillips said. “Think of those suffering people in Calgary. It’s the driest city in Canada and they deal with fly-away hair and chapped lips and wrinkles.”
- In 2007 Elie, Man. had Canada’s only EF5 tornado with winds of more than 400 kilometres per hour.
