Environment Canada confirms how ridiculously cold winter has been this year

We are Canadian. Winter does not scare us.

We invented snowmobiles, the snow blower, Polar fleece and Plexi-glass. There may be some debate about whether we invented hockey but, let’s be honest, we own it now.

But enough already.

Environment Canada statistics confirm what Canucks felt in their frozen bones — this winter has been a brutal beating from Mother Nature.

There are reports that the snow banks in Moncton, N.B. are three storeys high.

Three. Storeys.

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NASA kindly pointed out on Jan. 8 that it was warmer in the Gale Crater on Mars than it was throughout much of Canada, and there was one day in January that Ottawa was the coldest capital city on Earth — colder than Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia, and Moscow, Russia.

Niagara Falls froze. Okay, that happens a lot… when it’s incredibly cold.

But who, exactly, got hit the hardest this winter?

“The western half of the country fared far better than the eastern half of the country,” Environment Canada meteorologist Matt MacDonald told Yahoo News Canada.

“Actually, Ontario and Quebec had their coldest February in 115 years.”

A blocked jet stream that created a ridge of mild temperatures over B.C. and the Yukon became a trough over the East.

While the West Coast enjoyed seasonal temperatures 4-5°C above normal and the Yukon and western Alberta 3-4°C above, Ontario and provinces further east were stuck under a mass of cold air that, like a bad dinner guest, showed up early, empty-handed, and left late.

This winter wallop for Ontario and Quebec comes on the heels of last winter, which bore the dubious honour of being the coldest in 35 years.

And while the mercury may have been a bit more merciful on the East Coast, residents of the Atlantic provinces were hit by a “relentless” series of snow storms.

“P.E.I. and southern Newfoundland got hit the hardest,” MacDonald said.

Those two provinces saw 2.5 times their normal amount of snow. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia had double.

The Maritimes on average saw 400-500 centimetres of the white stuff.

“It wasn’t people’s imaginations. It was a particularly difficult winter for temperatures in Ontario and Quebec and snowfall in the Maritimes,” MacDonald said.

Weather Network meteorologist Doug Gillham predicted Tuesday that the current mild temperatures will spread across southern Canada.

Temperatures will be several degrees above seasonal but don’t put away your long johns just yet.

“By the end of the week, some of this Arctic air will return to the Maritimes and Southern Quebec. The cooldown will also be felt to a lesser extent across southern and eastern Ontario,” Gillham wrote in his forecast.

“Temperatures will not be as frigid as they were at times last week, but they will be below seasonal again.”

The good news is January and February are the coldest months of the year.

“So even though they’ll be colder than normal, March’s normal is a lot better than February’s normal,” MacDonald said.

Remember, March 20 is the first day of spring, glorious spring. Hang in there.