Winter is here, and there is protective snow on the ground across the prairies. While astronomical winter doesn't begin until December 21st, meteorologists consider December 1 as the real first day of winter, based on the weather. It's called Meteorological Winter, and it runs from Dec 1 to the end of February. For the prairies, though, winter weather arrived even earlier this year. November was a colder than average month across most of the Canadian prairies, and there is plenty of snow on the ground already! Below is a map showing snowfall anomalies, or how much more or less snow on the ground compared to long term averages. Where it's green, snow cover is above average. And, there's a lot of green across the prairies, from western Manitoba to central Alberta:
