Compare Winter Snowfall in Canadian Cities: City Rankings

Among major Canadian cities, St. John’s gets the most snow on average, at 335.0 cm per year, according to Environment Canada’s 1981–2010 climate normals. Québec City (303.4 cm) and Montréal (209.5 cm) follow, while Vancouver (44.6 cm) and Victoria (33.4 cm) record the least. The gap between eastern and western cities is large, so the choice of city changes winter conditions substantially.

Which Canadian cities get the most snow?

Average annual snowfall by city

Environment Canada’s 1981–2010 climate normals give these averages for major cities:

Victoria is the least snowy of Canada’s large cities in this dataset.

Ranking among the 33 largest metropolitan regions

The same normals rank Canada’s 33 largest metropolitan regions by snowfall. These rankings cover a wider set of places than the city table. The values shown for St. John’s, Québec and Montréal are the same in both, but the ranks differ because the groups differ.

Montréal ranks tenth in this group, behind nine other metropolitan regions.

Checking that a comparison is fair

• Use one period of climate normals. The figures here cover 1981–2010, so compare cities only against data from the same period.
• Keep geographic units separate. Compare city-to-city or metropolitan-to-metropolitan, not one of each.
• Read annual totals as averages. A yearly total shows how much snow falls on average, not how it is spread across the winter months.

Ranking the snowiest cities

Average annual snowfall across Canada’s major cities ranges from 335.0 cm in St. John’s to 33.4 cm in Victoria. According to Environment Canada’s 1981–2010 climate normals, St. John’s has the highest average of the cities listed.

Among the 33 largest census metropolitan areas, the five snowiest are St. John’s, Saguenay, Québec, Sherbrooke and Moncton, with averages between 282.0 cm and 335.0 cm. Eastern metropolitan areas make up the top five of the ranking.

The gaps between neighbouring cities are large. Montréal averages 88.0 cm more snow per year than Toronto, and Vancouver averages 11.2 cm more than Victoria. When comparing two cities, the difference in annual snowfall is a more useful measure of winter severity than a simple ranking, because it shows how much more or less snow falls in one city than in another.

The least snowy cities

Victoria has the lowest average annual snowfall of any major Canadian city, at 33.4 cm according to Environment Canada’s climate normals for 1981–2010. Vancouver is next at 44.6 cm. Both figures are far below the national upper end, where St. John’s averages 335.0 cm over the same period, about ten times Victoria’s total.

Toronto’s average is roughly 3.6 times Victoria’s, and Winnipeg’s is about 3.4 times. These gaps matter when choosing between cities, The table shows snowfall totals only and does not measure how many weeks of snow or how much disruption each city has.

Snow and winter: beyond the centimeters

Annual snowfall totals are the most direct way to compare winter severity across Canadian cities, but a single number says little about how winter affects daily life. According to Environment Canada’s 1981–2010 normals, average annual snowfall ranges from 335.0 cm in St. John’s to 33.4 cm in Victoria. That tenfold gap matters for commuting, parking, and property upkeep.

Snowfall across metropolitan regions

Ranking the 33 largest metropolitan regions adds regions absent from the city list, such as Saguenay, Sherbrooke and Moncton. Among them, the snowiest are: Among them, the snowiest are:

• St. John’s: 335.0 cm
• Saguenay: 321.7 cm
• Québec: 303.4 cm
• Sherbrooke: 286.5 cm
• Moncton: 282.0 cm

The figures for St. John’s, Québec and Montréal are the same in the city and metropolitan lists. Only the set of places ranked differs.

How to compare snowfall fairly

• Treat annual totals as a starting point. They do not show how snow is distributed across the months.

How to Read Climate Normals

A climate normal is an average calculated over a fixed reference period. It is not a forecast, and it does not describe a single winter. The snowfall figures in this article come from Environment Canada’s 1981–2010 normals, so each value is the average annual snowfall across those 30 years. A city can have a winter well above or below its normal without the normal itself changing.

Two checks make these figures easier to use correctly:

• Unit: Snowfall here is expressed in centimetres per year. Confirm that every city in a comparison uses the same unit.
• Station scope: A published normal describes one official weather station. It may not represent every neighbourhood in a metropolitan area, so check which station the figure refers to before applying it to a specific address.

The table below shows how the values rank for the nine cities selected for this article.

Subtracting one value from another gives the difference in average snowfall. For example, St. John’s (335.0 cm) minus Montréal (209.5 cm) equals 125.5 cm per year.

Which city to choose based on your tolerance for winter?

Annual snowfall is one useful measure of winter conditions, and the 1981–2010 normals published by Environment and Climate Change Canada give a consistent baseline for ranking cities. On that basis, the gap is wide: St. John’s averages 335.0 cm of snow a year, while Victoria averages 33.4 cm. Your first decision is the snowfall level you can live with, and the shortlist follows from that.

Among the 33 largest metropolitan areas, the snowiest are St. John’s (335.0 cm), Saguenay (321.7 cm), Quebec (303.4 cm), Sherbrooke (286.5 cm) and Moncton (282.0 cm).

Three tiers emerge from these figures:

• Heavy snow (above 280 cm): St. John’s, Quebec City, Saguenay, Sherbrooke, Moncton.
• Moderate snow (about 110 to 210 cm): Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, Toronto, Winnipeg.
• Light snow (under 50 cm): Vancouver, Victoria.

Snowfall does not capture cold. The official sources consulted for this comparison do not cover winter temperatures, so use these totals to narrow the list, then check temperature data before deciding.

Frequently asked questions

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