Is a white Christmas in the cards? Looking back at Canada’s Dec. 25 snow history

With fewer than two weeks remaining until Christmas Day, weather forecasts and snowfall projections are starting to take shape but have yet to be finalized for cities across Canada.

But can you expect a white Christmas? Environment and Climate Change Canada’s long-range forecast does not currently include Dec. 25 (and won’t until Dec. 19), but the agency has compiled data from the last 69 years to give you some idea of where snow is a near certainty.

Here’s the list of cities, ranked by percentage, where two centimetres of snow accumulation – the technical benchmark in Canada for a white Christmas – has greeted Santa Claus from 1955 through 2023:

The ‘Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus’ (who sees snow every year) division:

• Iqaluit 100%
• Kenora, Ont. 100%
• Whitehorse 100%
• Yellowknife 100%

The ‘Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow’ (most of the time) group (>90 per cent)

• Winnipeg 99%
• Goose Bay, N.L. 97%
• Quebec City 97%
• Timmins, Ont. 97%
• Thunder Bay, Ont. 96%
• Brandon, Man. 94%
• Sudbury, Ont. 93%
• Saskatoon 91%

The white Christmas percentages for other major Canadian cities are (from east to west):

• St. John’s 65%
• Halifax 51%
• Charlottetown 72%
• Fredericton 51%
• Montreal 74%
• Ottawa 78%
• Toronto 43%
• Regina 86%
• Calgary 62%
• Edmonton 87%
• Vancouver 10%
• Victoria 13%

The snow covered Petit-Champlain Street, decorated with Christmas lights in December 2008 in Quebec City. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot)

Green Christmas

For those who prefer a Christmas morning with little to no chance of shovelling, B.C. has proven to be the most likely spot for green Christmases over the last 69 years (Vancouver – 62 years, Victoria – 60 and Penticton – 46) while Toronto and Windsor (39 years each) were the most likely to be without snow amongst cities outside of B.C.

The complete snow record chart is available at Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Amount of snowfall recorded (in centimetres) for major cities across Canada from 1955 to 2023.