In Canada, weather is generally not far from our thoughts. It forms the Canadian psyche as much as hockey and the maple leaf. Although March has “come in like a lamb” across the country, winter still seems endless as we await the coming of spring; this is, after all, a winter nation. Canada can boast the world's lowest average daily temperature, -5.6° C, and North America's coldest recorded temperature, which occurred in 1947 in Snag, Yukon, when the temperature was a bone-chilling -63° C. It was so cold that an exhaled breath made a hissing sound as it froze.

It may be said in Canada that weather is a "powerful part of our community." It begins conversations by giving us something to commiserate over and, yes, to boast about. Even as we complain about the cold, the snow, the bad roads, the length of the season, we seem to take a perverse pleasure in having this object of complaint. As Richard Adams, in Watership Down, said, "Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it."

Certainly our Canadian hardiness is proof against our often-harsh climate, though we may get our long johns in a bunch that others see Canada only as a land of cold and snow. This frosty reputation produced surprise in visitors to the Vancouver Winter Olympics, shocked to see daffodils blooming in Canada in February. If only they had crossed the Rockies to see what winter delivers to the rest of Canada! Our reputation for winter hardiness would have been restored.

For most of Canada, winter brings snow, and Canadian blizzards can be particularly relentless. During the winter of 2004-05, the Atlantic Provinces were hit by three major storms in only eight days. Only twice in the preceding 50 years had there been three storms in a one-month period—in January 1981 and March 1993. The worst blizzard in Canadian railway history occurred between January 30 and February 8, 1947, when 10 days of blowing snow buried towns and trains from Calgary to Winnipeg. Some Saskatchewan roads and rail lines remained impassable until spring. Children stepped over power lines on their way to school and people dug tunnels to their outhouses.

But winter doesn't give us our only weather extremes. Canada's longest, deadliest heat wave, July 5-17, 1936, saw temperatures top 44° C in Manitoba and Ontario. The intense heat killed 1180 people, twisted steel rail lines and bridge girders, buckled sidewalks, wilted crops and baked fruit on trees. The hottest day on record was at Midale and Yellowgrass, Saskatchewan on July 5, 1937 when the temperature reached a scorching 45° C.

Extreme temperatures aren't all. Canada's deadliest tornado struck Regina on June 30, 1912, killing 40 people, injuring 300 and destroying 500 buildings. It lasted only three minutes but it took 46 years to pay for the damage. On May 4, 1971 heavy rains in St-Jean-Vianney, Que. opened a sinkhole 600m wide and 30m deep. The crater and mudslide killed 31 people and swallowed 35 homes, a bus and several cars.

Although it is March that sometimes “comes in like a lion,” many of our significant weather events have happened in February, whose weather superlatives include a deadly snowstorm in St. John's in 1959; a 1961 ice storm that left parts of Montreal without power for a week; a 1979 blizzard that isolated Iqaluit, Nunavut for 10 days; a 1982 blizzard that marooned PEI for a week; the Ocean Ranger disaster on February 15, 1982; the warmest Winter Olympics — 1988, in Calgary — when 18.1° C on February 26 was just a tad below Miami's 19.4° C; and the greatest single-day snowfall—145cm—at Tahtsa Lake, BC on February 11, 1999.

Despite Canada's nippy statistics, we do not hold world records for all cold extremes. Ottawa is only the world's second-coldest national capital, after Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.