It's been the same story across much of Canada. Toronto, the country's biggest city, was forecast to climb well above the freezing mark on Thursday, while Berlin will be at -11 C going into the weekend and Paris and London will hover around -6 C.
"People refer to Winnipeg as Winterpeg so they expect it to be really cold, but everyone is really happy about the warm weather," said Emili Bellefleur, spokeswoman for Festival du Voyageur, which includes snow carvings of wolves, bison and cultural symbols around the city of 700,000.
"We're going to take it, you know?"
With supplies of natural snow skimpy, the festival is trucking in artificially made snow from a winter recreation area, similar to the machine-made snow used on ski hills.
Bellefleur said she knows of only one other year that the 43-year-old festival had to buy artificial snow.
Winnipeggers and others in Western Canada can thank a flip-flop in air pressure patterns for the mild winter, which has funneled warmer southwest air across the Prairies, said Natalie Hasell, meteorologist at Environment Canada.
Normally, the La Nina weather phenomenon off the Pacific Coast of North America would leave the Prairies digging out of frigid, snowier than usual conditions.
But this winter it's been much milder, and bone dry. Nearly all of the country's main grain-growing region has received below-normal precipitation since November 5.
While Winnipeggers have happily put away their snow shovels, a dozen of the Festival du Voyageur's snow sculptors, coming from as far away as Switzerland, the Netherlands and even Mexico have been shocked by the mild weather.
Usually, "the worst part for them when they come from Mexico is dealing with the cold itself," Bellefleur said. "Not necessarily the (lack of) snow."
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The western provinces of Canada have been enjoying an incredible winter in regards to warmth and lack of snow, Edmonton and Calgary in Alberta are hitting well above the freezing marks yet again in another repetitive warm front moving in from the southwest from the Pacific Ocean and crossing eastwards over the Rockies to the Canadian Prairies. It has not snowed here in weeks and though the past 3 days have been relatively cooler than normal that is ending tonight also the past few weeks have been cloudless and sunny. This is turning into the mildest winter in over 60 years. The Snowblowers, Snow shovels, and the Street gritters have seen very little use this year compared to a harsh, cold, heavy snow winter last year. Mother nature is being kind to a nation who knows what winter is about while taking it out on countries that do not know how to cope with cold and snow on a regular basis.
Just shows that in some serious ways the climate is changing affecting people across the globe.