Vancouver Rain by the Numbers: Myths and Facts

By Julia · weather-canada.com editorial team · Published 23 October 2026 · 4 min read

Vancouver has a reputation, and like most reputations it is half true. The other half hides in the calendar. Instead of arguing about whether it "always rains", this article tests four common statements against ten years of daily reanalysis data and compares Vancouver with Toronto, Halifax and Calgary.

A caution on method first. The numbers come from ERA5, a reanalysis with a grid of about 25 kilometres. In a place where mountains rise a few kilometres from the harbour, a grid cell averages coast and slope, and a rain gauge in the city could read lower than the totals below. Treat the figures as good for comparing months and cities, and use Environment and Climate Change Canada's station records for the official city number.

Statement one: "It rains all year"

False, and the clearest way to see it is a month-by-month chart.

From 2016 to 2025 the average November brought 306 mm to Vancouver, December 268 mm and January 246 mm. July brought 31 mm and August 43 mm. Toronto, by comparison, never drops below 57 mm (September) or rises above 97 mm (April). Halifax stays between 89 mm (May) and 159 mm (December), a gentler version of the same thing. Calgary is the reverse of Vancouver: its wettest month is June, at 102 mm, and its driest is January, at 12 mm.

Put as a share, 75 % of Vancouver's annual rain falls between October and March. In Halifax it is 56 %, in Toronto 48 %, in Calgary 28 %.

Statement two: "It's wet, but it's just drizzle"

Partly true. Vancouver's winter is long on days and heavy on the days themselves.

Counting days with at least 1 mm of precipitation, Vancouver has 19.9 in December, 18.9 in November and 18.1 in January: on average, rain on about two days in three. In July the number falls to 4.5, and 5.8 in August. Toronto sits between 8.8 and 12.9 days all year.

The heavy days are not drizzle. Vancouver averages 25.4 days a year with 20 mm or more, against 22.5 in Halifax and only 5.9 in Toronto. Over the ten years, the reanalysis counts 15 days with 50 mm or more for Vancouver, 19 for Halifax and none for Toronto. The wettest single day in Vancouver's series is October 19, 2024, at 79.9 mm. The longest wet streak, days in a row with at least 1 mm, is 22 days, from November 11 to December 2, 2017.

Statement three: "The wet season starts in October"

It depends on the year, and that dependence is the interesting part. Take the date when the cumulative rain since September 1 first reaches 500 mm.

In Vancouver that threshold was crossed as early as October 25 (in 2021) and as late as December 27 (in 2022). The median year lands around mid-November. In Halifax the same total is reached between mid-November and mid-February, and in Toronto between mid-February and early June of the following year. So "the wet season starts in autumn" is true on average and wrong for any single year. A wet October, such as 2016 (424 mm in the reanalysis), brought the date forward by weeks.

The two wettest months of the decade in Vancouver were both Novembers: 2016 with 515.9 mm and 2021 with 499.2 mm. Toronto's wettest were April 2024 (168.0 mm) and May 2025 (160.3 mm).

Statement four: "Summers are perfect"

Mostly. The same data that tells you July is nearly dry also says that the dry spell can be extraordinary or unremarkable. In July and August 2017 Vancouver collected 15 mm; in 2020 it collected 114 mm. The driest month of the whole decade was July 2021, at 0.8 mm, and in 2021 a run of 51 days with less than 1 mm each stretched from June 16 to August 5.

Sunshine tells the other half of the story.

In December the reanalysis gives Vancouver 99 hours of sunshine, against 129 in Toronto and 158 in Calgary, about 3.2 hours a day. By July the order flips: Vancouver 416 hours, Calgary 411, Toronto 394. The dull stretch is November to February, when Vancouver trails both cities, and it is the same stretch in which most of the rain falls.

What to do with that

Pack for the season, not for the city. From November to February, a truly waterproof shell, waterproof shoes and a light for the evening are worth more than an umbrella you will not hold in a coastal wind. In July and August, bring sunscreen, and do not be surprised if a visit passes without a single wet day. For the season-by-season advice in the rest of the country, see when to go, what to wear and how to drive, and for the wider ten-year picture, ten years of Canadian weather.

Period of the data cited: 2016–2025.