MONTREAL - Here's a warm thought for Canadians complaining about the cold: the winters here are not nearly as frigid as they once were.
Vast swaths of this country are experiencing a winter freeze that has become the subject of numerous media reports and even made international news Monday with the online headline from Britain's BBC: "Wind chill warnings across Canada."
But figures compiled by Environment Canada, and released to The Canadian Press, provide a little perspective.
Those statistics from the national weather office reveal a drastic drop in the number of cold days — defined as anything -15 C or colder — in recent decades.
The trend is noted in every city measured across the country — in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary. Even Vancouver's mild winters have gotten milder.
The most striking change was in Toronto. Environment Canada's figures note a 52.8 per cent drop there in cold days from the 1970s to the decade just completed.
"It's not just one area, it's not just the Arctic — it's from coast to coast to coast," David Phillips, a senior climatologist at Environment Canada, said Monday in an interview.
The numbers reveal an overarching pattern:
—During the 1970s, there were 276 total cold days in Toronto, for an average of 27.6 days per year. Between 2000 and 2009 there were only 130 such days, or just 13 per year.
—In Halifax, there were 226 such bone-chilling days during the 1970s — or 22.6 days per year — which declined to 143 days, or 14.3 per year, during the first decade of the millennium. That represents a 36 per cent drop from the 1970s in the number of cold days.
—Winnipeg had a whopping 930 such days in the 1970s — or 93 days per year — compared with just 775 days in the last decade. That's a 16.7 per cent decline from the 1970s.
—Calgary had 562 cold days in the 1970s — or 56 per year — compared with just 412 in the decade that just ended. That's a 26.7 per cent drop.
—Vancouver, with its warmer winters, had 101 days that dipped below -5 C in the 1970s, compared with just 47 in the decade that just ended. That's a drop of just over 63 per cent.
In almost every case, for every city, the decline was steady from one decade to the next.
Never mind that cold snap - fed stats suggest Canadian winters getting milder
