page_title: Geography and climate of Winnipeg
section_title: Winter
hierarchical_section_title: Geography and climate of Winnipeg / Climate / Winter
caption_attribution_description: English: Curling on the Red River at the Forks
context_page_description: Winnipeg lies at the bottom of the Red River Valley, a low-lying flood plain with an extremely flat topography. This valley was formed by the ancient glacial Lake Agassiz which has rich deposits of black soil. Winnipeg is on the eastern edge of the Canadian Prairies in Western Canada; it is known as the 'Gateway to the West'. It is relatively close to many large Canadian Shield lakes and parks, as well as Lake Winnipeg. Winnipeg is bordered by tallgrass prairie to the west and south and the aspen parkland to the northeast.
  Winnipeg is fairly isolated in that the closest city with equal or greater population is Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Minnesota, which is 733 km southeast from the city. According to the Census geographic units of Canada, the city has a total area of 464.01 km² and an elevation of 240 m.
  The city has a humid continental climate with wide temperature contrasts between winter and summer, and greater precipitation in summer. Mean January temperature is −16.4 °C, and mean July temperature is 19.7 °C. Average annual precipitation is 521.1 mm; snow falls on 53 days and lies on 132 days in an average year.
context_section_description: Typical winter phenomena include the bonspiel (January) thaw, ice fog, and the aurora borealis. The city is virtually assured of having a white Christmas as there is only one 25 December on record in the last century where there was no snow on the ground. Out of Canada's 100 largest cities, Winnipeg's winter is the tenth coldest with an average low of −20.2 °C (−4.4 °F). From December through February the maximum daily temperature exceeds 0 °C (32 °F), on average, for only 10 days and the minimum daily temperature falls below −20 °C (−4 °F) on 49 days.
caption: Curling rink on the Red River at The Forks
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