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.