<p>Ok, I’m sure someone has asked about it before, but I’m wondering what it’s like up there during winter. I know I may sound like a bit of a wuss, but it’s kind of a deciding factor for me if I do get it. Anyways, I’m from Philadelphia, so winter here pretty much consists of like 38 degrees and rain or bitter wind (and a total of like 1 inch of snow the whole season). It’s kind of made me have a bad view towards winter. Does it snow like every day up there or is it like bitter and 15 degrees like in Winnipeg? Do people get depressed like they do in Scandinavia from the long winter season?</p>
<p>By my standards*, Montreal has no winter. But let’s put it in perspective before others exaggerate the other way around. </p>
<p>[url="<a href=“http://www.worldclimate.com/cgi-bin/grid.pl?gr=N45W073"]Montreal[/url">http://www.worldclimate.com/cgi-bin/grid.pl?gr=N45W073"]Montreal[/url</a>] is nowhere near as cold as [url=”<a href="http://www.worldclimate.com/cgi-bin/grid.pl?gr=N49W097"]Winnipeg[/url">http://www.worldclimate.com/cgi-bin/grid.pl?gr=N49W097"]Winnipeg[/url</a>]. Montreal receives on average about 7 feet of snow per year. It may look like a lot, but the actual snow depth will rarely exceed a foot (last December being an exception). Snow also gets cleared from the streets and sidewalks pretty efficiently, so there really isn’t that much snow to worry about (unless you have to drive). It doesn’t snow everyday between December and April. And Montreal being much more south than Scandinavia, it’s not dark 20 hours in the day in late December. But it will be colder and darker than Philadelphia.</p>
<p>That being said, you can get used to the cold provided you dress appropriately and let your body adapt to the temperature by doing so gradually. The mistake a lot of people do is to put on everything they can and overheat their living quarters the minute the temperature starts to feel uncomfortable. This way when it does get colder, they can’t add any more layers and this just makes the inside to outside transition more brutal.
Some people do get depressed over the dead season, but there are many ways to avoid it, one is to get out and enjoy some winter time activities (spend a weekend skiing in Mont-Tremblant, or just go sliding on Mont-Royal).</p>
<p>The other thing is that temperature can fluctuate a lot in winter, and the most annoying is not when the temperature dips down below seasonal, but when it hovers around the freezing point, and you get “wintry mix”, sleet, snow, rain, icing rain, and sidewalks that go from slush to water to pure ice in no time.</p>
<p>*the probability of a white Xmas has to be 1, and in Montreal about 1 Xmas in 5 is not white. Incidentally, this definition also makes technically make Winnipeg winterless</p>
<p>thank you very much</p>
<p>I used to think I’d be entering some sort of ice age of sorts once the winter came. Being from the states, I was ignorant as to how “people survived up there.” Honestly, it’s quite manageable. The most annoying part of winter is actually this perpetual sludge that coats all the streets and sidewalks. You get ridiculous salt stains and your shoes get ruined very quickly. This is why you generally don’t wear nice shoes when you’re going to be doing a lot of walking. I bike to school every day around 6:30 am, and I’m getting pretty used to the bitter pinch in the mornings. It wakes me up. The other day it was so slippery because the rain froze that I couldn’t cross a street up hill without using my hands to crawl. The other guy is right though, Mtl is great at clearing snow. This truck goes through the street wailing a siren after a storm, and that means residents clear their cars out of parking so that a giant effin tractor can come and clear away all the snow. Sick. Anyway, don’t let weather be a reason you don’t come to McGill. As I look outside right now I know it’s cold, but the sun’s shining and the sky has clouds in it. You’ll have all summer to enjoy the warm weather (And you will really really enjoy it!).</p>
<p>Well, I’m going through my first Montreal winter (and my first winter EVER, because I’m from Hawaii) and I have to honestly say it’s not terrible. It doesn’t snow every day, that’s for sure, and when it does it’s cleared away from the streets and widely used sidewalks very quickly. The temperature has been averaging around -8 Celsius (get used to celsius if you come up here, nobody uses Fahrenheit) and I am generally okay wearing jeans, a long sleeved shirt, scarf, mittens, toque, and a wool coat. If it gets colder, then I put on tights, and if it gets colder than that I’ll put on my fabulously warm down North Face jacket. You’ll be fine, just get yourself a good jacket and pair of boots. </p>
<p>I second what justatest said, the ice was ridiculous the other day!! Add the wind, and I was just kind of sailing along the sidewalk!</p>
<p>And think of it this way: after a long winter (where everyone is just as cold as you are) the summer is going to be AMAZING.</p>
<p>Yea, well I guess I didn’t really mean it was a deciding factor, but like lets say if I get into Emory and McGill, it could come down to weather i want 60 degree winters or 10 degree winters haha. But thanks for the info.</p>
<p>Which school do you think has the better reputation? It’s really hard to gauge McGill’s job placement ability in the US…or at least it is for me.</p>
<p>I’m not really too worried about job placement at Mcgill, because even though its in Canada, I think its one of the few schools up there that many employers and just people in general recognize as top tier.</p>