How much does it snow in Victoria?

Victoria only gets about 20 cm of snow annually - the least of any city in Canada.  Even areas nearby get considerably more snow.  For example, both the Victoria Airport (25 km north of the city) and Vancouver Airport get nearly 40 cm of snow annually - roughly double Victoria.  It is very common for Vancouver and up-Island communities to get snow when there is none in Victoria.  In fact, there will often be snow in Langford and the Saanich Peninsula (where the Victoria Airport is located) while there is none in the core area of Victoria, especially those areas near the moderating influence of the Strait of Juan de Juca.  Below is a photo of the Legislative Buildings near downtown Victoria taken on February 23, 2014.  While there is clearly no snow downtown, the Victoria Airport recorded 21 cm of snow that day!

December is the snowiest month in Victoria, and accounts for nearly half of the annual total.  It should be noted that because snow is quite rare in Victoria there is a lot of variability from year to year.  In the past, January was typically the snowiest month, but a few large December snowfalls in the 1980s and 1990s has shifted that pattern.

Victoria averages about 4 days per year with measurable snowfall and about 1 day per year with a snowfall greater than 5 cm.  However, this is highly variable and Victoria quite often has winters with little or no snowfall.  For example, in 13 of the past 30 winters (43%), Victoria has received less than 5 cm of snow for the entire season.

Below is a photo of snow in Victoria from November 2006.

In addition to snowfall, we can also measure snow depth or snow on the ground.  At Victoria Gonzales, this was measured from 1955 until 1988.  I have supplemented this with measurements taken at Victoria Phyllis Street between 1988 and 2000, and with my own measurements, taken in James Bay, from 2000 until 2016.  For the 1981-2010 period, Victoria has averaged 5.4 days annually with at least 1 cm of snow on the ground and 2.9 days annually with at least 5 cm of snow on the ground.  For both these measures, this is the lowest of any major city in Canada.  Victoria Airport averages 8.4 days annually with at least 1 cm of snow on the ground, while Vancouver Airport averages 9.3 days.  Other Canadian cities have snow on the ground for much longer: 86 days in Calgary, 72 days in Toronto, 104 days in Montreal, and a whopping 128 days in Winnipeg - that's over 4 months with snow on the ground!

While Victoria usually doesn't get much snow, occasionally it experiences very large snowfalls.  In January-February 1916, 170 cm of snow fell at Victoria Gonzales over a period of 16 days, with 116 cm of that falling in just five days between January 29 and February 2.  More recently, 103 cm of snow fell over three days between December 27 and 29, 1996.  The snow was more than 60 cm deep and Victoria ground to a halt for a few days.  Snow remained on the ground for 15 days - one of the longest stretches ever recorded in Victoria.

More recently, there seems to be a trend of fewer and fewer days with snow on the ground in Victoria.  In fact, the last time Victoria measured more than 1 cm of snow on the ground was January 20, 2012 - almost four years ago.  That is the longest snowless stretch that Victoria has experienced in the 60 years that snow on the ground has been measured.

How much does it rain in Victoria?

Precipitation is another key aspect of Victoria's climate - and one that makes it quite unique among places along the B.C. coast - thanks to the rainshadow effect.  The east coast of Vancouver Island as well as the Gulf Islands, are in the rainshadow of the Vancouver Island mountains.  Moisture from the Pacific is dropped in abundant amounts on the west coast of Vancouver Island as the air lifts up over the mountains.  As the air flows back down to the east coast lowlands of Vancouver Island, it tends to warm and dry out, resulting in much less rain.  Victoria is unique because it is also in the rainshadow of the Olympic Mountains in Washington State.  The Olympics are higher than the mountains on Vancouver Island and the resulting rainshadow effect is stronger. Even though Victoria is on the edge of the Olympic rainshadow, this still results in much less rain than other areas of Vancouver Island or the Gulf Islands.  This is especially true around the southeast part of Greater Victoria (the City of Victoria, Oak Bay, and the southeast part of Saanich), which is most affected by the Olympic Mountain rainshadow.  Below is a radar image from February 22, 2014 of the southern Vancouver Island and western Washington.  You can clearly see the rainshadow,  which appears as a hole in the rain that includes Victoria as well as parts of Washington State (around Sequim and Whidbey Island).  This is a pretty typical location for the rainshadow.

Average annual precipitation at Victoria Gonzales is 641 mm for the 1981-2010 period.  Victoria Airport, 25 km to the north, receives 883 mm - nearly 40% more precipitation.  Even more astounding is the change in precipitation amounts as you head west from Victoria and out of the rainshadow.  Port Renfrew, located just 80 km west of Victoria on the exposed outer coast of the Island, receives an average of 3,671 mm of precipitation annually - nearly six times as much as Victoria.

Victoria receives less than half as much precipitation as Vancouver (1560 mm at Vancouver Harbour).  Victoria also receives less annual precipitation than all major cities in Canada east of the Prairies.  For example, Toronto averages 786 mm, while Montreal gets 1,000 mm and Halifax gets 1,396 mm.

Aside from the amount of precipitation Victoria receives, the other interesting thing is the seasonal pattern.  The Prairies receive the bulk of their precipitation during the summer, while winters are typically quite dry.  Most locations in Canada east of the Prairies receive roughly similar amounts of precipitation throughout the year.  B.C., especially along the South Coast, is quite unique in having a late fall/winter rainy season and a summer dry season, and this is most pronounced in Victoria.  Victoria Gonzales gets 119 mm of precipitation in November, its wettest month.  That's nearly ten times the average July rainfall total of 12.6 mm.  Victoria receives over half of its annual precipitation during just three months  - November, December, and January.  In contrast, it receives less than 8% of its annual precipitation during the three summer months (June to August).  In fact, Victoria is by far the driest major city in Canada during the summer.  It's 50 mm total average summer rainfall compares with 160 mm for Vancouver, 217 mm for Calgary, 225 mm for Toronto, 270 mm for Montreal, and 285 mm for Halifax.  Even desert-like  Osoyoos gets 84 mm of rain during the summer - nearly 70% more than Victoria.

Victoria gets 140 days annually with some measurable precipitation.  This varies from fewer than 5 days with measurable rain in both July and August, to nearly 19 days in November.

The wettest month on record at Victoria Gonzales is 337 mm in January 1935.  Although measurements weren't recorded for Gonzales, November 1990 was a very wet month in Victoria.  Nearby Victoria Phyllis Street received a record 395 mm that month.  For its driest month on record, Victoria has experienced calendar months with  no precipitation eight times: August 1901, July 1914, July 1922, July 1926, July 1958, August 1986, September 1991, and August 1998.  Victoria has had months with less than 1 mm of rainfall 23 times: once in May, twice in June, eleven times in July, eight times in August, and once in September.  The driest year at Victoria Gonzales was 1978, with 383 mm, while the wettest year on record was 1933 with 945 mm.  Again, although precipitation wasn't measured at Gonzales in 1990, the annual precipitation at nearby Victoria Phyllis Street was a record-breaking 1,084 mm.

The table below shows average monthly rainfall, snowfall, and total precipitation at Victoria Gonzales, as well as days with measurable precipitation.  Nearly 97% of the precipitation at Victoria Gonzales falls as rain.  We'll look at snowfall in more detail in the next post.

What are the temperature extremes in Victoria?

As with the average temperatures, the extreme temperatures in Victoria tend to be not so extreme in Victoria.  

Victoria Gonzales averages 10.8 days annually when the temperature drops to 0 or below - by far the least for any city in Canada.  By comparison, Victoria Airport - located away from the Strait of Juan de Fuca in an area prone to frost - averages 46 days annually with freezing temperatures.  Vancouver Airport averages 40.9 days annually with freezing temperatures.  In the past 100 years, there have been 5 winters at Victoria Gonzales when the temperature did not fall below 0: 1925/26, 1939/40, 1991/92, 1999/2000, and 2002/03.  The median lowest temperature each winter is -4.8.  

The coldest temperature ever recorded at Victoria Gonzales was -15.6 on December 29, 1968.  However, temperatures like that are rare and getting rarer.  In fact, there have been no temperatures below -10 recorded in Victoria since December 1990.  In the past 25 years, the coldest temperature recorded at Victoria Gonzales was -8.8 on December 20, 2008.  

On average, Victoria Gonzales only gets only 1 day per year with a temperature above 30 degrees.  The Victoria Airport - again away from the moderating influence of the Strait of Juan de Fuca - averages 2.1 such days.  Vancouver Airport averages only 0.3 days above 30 degrees each year.  The median highest temperature at Victoria Gonzales each year is 29.8.  The hottest temperature ever recorded at Victoria Gonzales was 36.0 degrees on July 11, 2007.  

The table below shows the extreme maxima and minima for each month, and for the year, at Victoria Gonzales.

What are temperatures like in Victoria?

I thought I would start out this blog by describing key aspects of Victoria's climate.  Of course, a major element of any climate is temperature, so I will start there.  The climate statistics I quote here are all based on 1981-2010 30-year averages for Victoria Gonzales.

A key feature of Victoria's climate - and one that distinguishes it from most other places in Canada - is its mildness.  The average annual temperature at Victoria Gonzales is 10.6 degrees, among the warmest places in Canada.  What's really unique - at least in Canada - is how little this varies throughout the year.  The coldest month on the year in Victoria is December, with a mean temperature of 5.3 degrees, while the warmest month is August, with a mean temperature of 16.3.  That is a difference of just 11 degrees between the coldest month of the year and the warmest.  By comparison, this difference is 14 degrees for Vancouver, 27 degrees for Toronto, and 36 degrees for Winnipeg.

Victoria has the mildest winters (Dec-Feb) of any city in Canada, with an average daily high/low temperature of 8.0 / 3.7 degrees.  Victoria also has among the coolest summers (Jun-Aug) of any city in Canada, with an average daily high/low of 19.9 / 11.3.  This is all thanks to being surrounded by water.  In particular, the Strait of Juan de Fuca to our south has a very strong moderating influence.  I'll talk about this more in a later post on microclimates and variation around the Victoria region.

The chart below summarizes the average daily high and low temperatures and the mean monthly temperatures at Victoria Gonzales.  The warmest average monthly temperature ever recorded at Victoria Gonzales was 17.8 degrees for July 2004 - almost 2 degrees warmer than the average July - followed by 17.7 degrees in July 1958 and 17.6 degrees in July 2015 and August 1997.  The coldest average monthly temperature ever recorded was -3.3 in January 1950.  That's 9 degrees colder than the average January, and far colder than any other month at Victoria Gonzales - the next coldest was -1.4 in January 1916.   The warmest year on record at Victoria Gonzales was 2015, with a mean temperature of 11.6 degrees.  The coolest year on record was 1916, with an average temperature of 8.6 degrees.

Victoria weather sites: Gonzales vs. the Airport

One of my pet peeves is that the official weather recording site for Victoria is located at the Victoria International Airport - which is actually in North Saanich, 25 km north of Victoria. This would be okay if the climate at the airport was representative of Victoria, but it really isn't. This partly goes back to the rainshadow effect. The core area of Greater Victoria (particularly the City of Victoria, Oak Bay, and the southeastern part of Saanich) is much more affected by the Olympic Mountain rainshadow than the Westshore or the Saanich Peninsula (where the airport is located). In addition, the moderating effect of the Strait of Juan de Fuca means that the core area (especially those parts near the Strait) tend to be milder (warmer in the winter, cooler in the summer) than the Saanich Peninsula.

So if not the Airport site, then what weather recording site should be used to represent Victoria? The Gonzales weather station used to be Victoria's official recording site, and it has a longer period of record than the Airport (weather records started at Gonzales in 1898 versus 1941 for the Airport). Gonzales is located just over 3 km southeast of downtown Victoria. It is located on top of a small hill close to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Some might argue that Gonzales isn't very representative of Victoria either. Being close to the Strait, it tends to have cooler high temperatures than inland areas, especially during the summer. Also, the rainshadow effect in Victoria is strongest in the southeast corner of the region - very close to Gonzales, to it does tend to be one of the driest locations in the region. While Gonzales is slightly drier than some other parts of the core area of Victoria, precipitation levels are still much more representative of Victoria than is the case for the Airport site.

Comparing the two sites, you can definitely see the impact of the rainshadow and the moderating effect of the Strait. Victoria Gonzales averages 641 mm of precip. annually, while the Airport averages 883 mm - 38% more. Similarly, Gonzales gets about 20 cm of snow annually while the Airport gets nearly 40 cm. Gonzales also gets more sunshine - an average of 2,203 hours at Gonzales versus 2,109 hours at the Airport. Gonzales is also milder, with an average of 11 days each year when the temperature dips below freezing, compared with 46 days at the Airport.

The Airport statistics noted above are based on 30-year normals - averages over the 30 year period between 1981 and 2010 as reported by Environment Canada.  For Gonzales, things are a little more complicated.  Gonzales was the official Environment Canada weather site for Victoria for 90 years, and comprehensive climate data was recorded during this period.  Unfortunately, Gonzales was essentially decommissioned in July 1988 and these comprehensive measurements ended.  In November 1993, Environment Canada opened an automatic weather station at Gonzales which records temperature, total precipitation, wind speed, humidity and atmospheric pressure. As a result, there is a roughly 5 year gap in the data, between August 1988 and October 1993.  Unfortunately, snowfall and sunshine are no longer recorded at Gonzales.  For snowfall, beginning the winter of 1988-89, I have used data from Victoria Phyllis Street, a nearby Environment Canada volunteer site (located in the Ten Mile Point area of Saanich) with a roughly similar climate to Gonzales.  The Phyllis Street data ends in 2000, so since then I have been measuring snowfall at my home in James Bay.  There is really no alternative for measuring sunshine, so that ends in 1988.  As a result, I have used a 30-year average for the most recent 30 year period available (1958-87).

Victoria's unique climate

Victoria's climate is very unique in Canada. It's well known as the mildest city in Canada, but what really makes it stand apart from other parts of coastal British Columbia is its location in a double rainshadow of Vancouver Island and the Olympic Mountains. As a result, Victoria gets much less rain and snow, and significantly more sunshine than other places in coastal B.C. In fact, among major cities in Canada, only those in the southern Prairies get less precipitation and more sunshine than Victoria.

Just to highlight the mild part of Victoria's climate, I have included a picture taken on January 23, 2010 of some daffodils in full bloom here in Victoria. There's not too many places in Canada where you would see that in January!