Coldest day of 2025 was one year ago, UW weather station looks back
Posted Jan 21, 2026 04:21:59 AM.
Last Updated Jan 21, 2026 10:12:50 AM.
As the bone-chilling cold and snow continue to batter the region, the E.D. Soulis Memorial Weather Station at the University of Waterloo is looking back at how this frigid winter compares to winter 2025.
Last year, the meteorological winter in the region (December-January-February) went down as the coldest winter in 10 years.
“The year started out very cold with some of the most frigid days we have seen in a few years,” reads a report from the weather station. “The temperature went below -20 C for three days in a row, which had not happened since January of 2022.”
On Jan. 21, 2025, Waterloo Region saw the coldest wind chill of the year, coming in at -35 at 6:45 a.m. (the record is -47.3 back in 2015).
The arctic air took over for most of February, too, before some warmer weather finally moved in through the last week of February, with six days of temperatures going above the freezing mark.
For those looking to the spring, the last day temperatures went below the freezing mark last year was May 9.
As far as snow, rain and total precipitation go, it was a very snowy year in 2025.
Some might remember the nearly 78 cm of snow that had Waterloo Region shovelling for all of February, more than double the average amount of snowfall for the month.
January wasn’t much better, with nearly 69 cm of snow over 31 days.
The end of 2025 also saw a lot of snow and ice over the holiday season, with 59 cm of snow in November and 54.5 cm of snow in December.
What about the warmer months?
“The overall temperature for the five months between March and July were the second warmest in the history of the region,” reads the report. “The overall average temperature for 2025 was half a degree above average, which tied it with 2001 as the 15th warmest year in the region’s history.”
June and July saw the region sweltering with multiple heat waves. In fact, July was the hottest since 1955, with the highest humidex of 2025 recorded on July 17 at 5 p.m. at 45.9.
The hottest recorded temperature was 35 C on June 25 at 8:30 p.m.
As for rain, the most significant rainfall would be hard to forget on April 3, with 78.8 mm of rain falling on the region in one day.
The full report from the E.D. Soulis Weather Station can be read here.
