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.
Read Also
Prairie farms race to get ready for winter 2025
Equipment needs to be winterized and stored; fall field work needs to be done and there are a million tiny jobs to make sure both the farm yard and farm house are ready for the snow to fly
“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.
