Section 2: Climate

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Climate can be defined as the average weather that occurs in a specific area over a period of time. Climate is measured using various weather elements as indicators. Two essential indicators, temperature and precipitation, are measured systematically at weather stations over time, accumulating observations from which climatic summaries can be derived. Table 2.1 lists some of the more extreme weather events that have recently had an impact on Canada.

Temperature

Table 2.2 summarizes the mean daily temperatures by month as recorded at selected weather stations across Canada and averaged over the period of 1971 to 2000. Table 2.3 presents temperature trends and departures for the climate regions shown in Map 2.1.

Precipitation

Some 5,000 km³ of precipitation falls on Canada every year, mainly in the form of rain and snow. ¹  Air masses that carry this precipitation generally circulate from west to east (Map 2.2). Table 2.4 shows the average annual precipitation as recorded at selected weather stations.

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