As we experience the first cold weather of the winter here in south west Ontario, I’m reminded of just how far south we are within the North American continent, and even with a national expectation of Canadian weather, we actually get pretty mild winters.

I’m not sure that the graphic is of much help, but here goes. We’re in Chatham, Ontario, marked with the yellow X in the bottom right-hand corner. We lie between the 42nd and 43rd Parallel, marginally further north than Chicago, but not much. The bulk of the US and Canadian border follows the 49th Parallel, which is way above Lake Superior. That means that about one third of the land mass of the United States is further north than we are.

When people hear Canada, they automatically think that the whole country is north of the US, and is therefore colder (and less hospitable) than the US, which of course simply isn’t true.

Not only are we not very far north, but we’re also at the north western end of the Mississippi River, and warm weather is often funnelled up from the Gulf of Mexico, which gives us a surprising warm climate, at least when the wind is blowing in that direction. We often get stuck south of the Jet Stream, too, which is why places like Montreal and Quebec City can be buried in snow in the winter as those cities tend to be north of the Jet Stream most of the time, and we’re languishing in the rain.

While the climate is quite different in the Mediterranean, it’s interesting to note that we are also on much the same latitude as Rome (Slightly north of Rome really). We don’t get their summers, or winters, but we do get similar amounts of daylight, meaning slightly shorter days in summer, but slightly longer in winter.

So next time you hear me say that I live in Canada, remember that we’re not all living on the Tundra.