If you think winter has been particularly harsh this year you're right

Calgarians who think this winter has been particularly bad in terms of snow and cold aren't alone.

And they aren't wrong.

"It's very unusual.Calgary does generally have a little more of an arid climate," CBC meteorologist Christy Climenhaga told the Calgary Eyeopener on Monday.

"In the last week, over 20 centimetres of snowfall. In the month so far, you've had about 36 centimetres. And to put that in perspective, usually in February you'd only see about 14.5 centimetres. So you're already more than double your usualmonthly amount of snow."

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The city has also seen its share of cold, with the mercury dipping around the 29C mark in recent days, which felt like 40C or colder with windchill factored in.

Some of that is the result of the city receiving fewerchinooksthan usual.

"It has been a little bit of a different year on that end. Usually you get 30 to 45 a year, that's the average," said Climenhaga. "You had one in early January after the deep freeze of winter, but as we have been watching the setup in the atmosphere, it's actually been an incredible winter with the amount of cold weather the West has been seeing."

A "polar vortex" has been sitting unseasonably south, saidClimenhaga, which is pulling cold air overtop of the Prairies.

"And Alberta has been right on the edge of thejetstreampulling down that cooler weather," she said. "It's been a different winter."

The cold has been enough to even keep some dogs indoors, professional walker Susan Smith told theEyeopener.

"They love to play in the snow but they don't like the cold," she said of her canine clients.

"They stop and want me to pick them up and put them back where it's warm. It is bad. And the snow has never been this deep before."

Not everyone is unhappy with the snow, however.

AlasdairFergussonis the head track-setter with the Calgary Ski Club atShaganappiGolf Course and says this year has been the best in recent memory.

"I've been a grooming and track-setting in Shaganappi for 31 years and I have no recollection of the 35 centimetres of snow I measured at Shaganappi coming down over a two-day period," he said.

"And the crowds were out. To count in excess of 70 cars in the parking lot at nine o'clock on the morning and 75 or 76 cars at three o'clock in the afternoon it was very, very popular on Saturday."

The snow has been more than welcome, but not the cold, saidFergusson.

"We have a limit for safety purposes both for equipment and for humans of 18 C," he said.

A welcome reprievefrom the cold arrived Monday afternoon asthe temperature rosefrom a bone chilling 29 C in the early morning hours to about 8 C by lunchtime.

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