Climate

Climate can divided into 3 belts.
• Sparsely settled northern areas have an arctic or tundra type of climate on the islands and northern coastal areas. Arctic climate is characterized by long, cold winters and no summer month.
• The vast transitional area-there is subarctic type of climate is between the frozen north and the settled south. Winters are similarly long and bitterly cold, but summers are warm enough to support vegetation growth
• South-The populated southern areas have a wide variety of temperate climate.
• The Pacific coastal areas have a temperate marine west coast type of climate, with cool summers and mild winters.
• The interior plains have a middle latitude steppe type of climate in the drier south and north more humid and extreme continental type of climate. There are winters not so mild and short summers.
• The Great Lakes-St.Lawrence Lowlands and the Appalachian Region have a more humid version of continental climate. Both areas have a long, cold winters, short warm summers.

Precipitation is heaviest in the west where moisture-laden winds from the Pacific Ocean are forced to rise over the mountainous coastal regions. Precipitation is the least in the Interior Plains. Except for the low-lying Pacific coast areas, winter precipitation throughout Canada is usually in the form of snow, and thick blankets of accumulated snow cover most of Canada east of the Rockies for 3 to 6 month of the year. Precipitation is generally light in the western areas of the arctic and sub arctic regions and heavier in northern Quebec and Labrador. Despite the low precipitation, snow covers the ground permanently for more than 6 months of every year.