If reminded that Toronto lies in a temperate zone of the globe, many Torontonians would answer with a bitter laugh. The conventional wisdom in the city is that our weather is brutal: bloody cold in the winter and insufferably hot in summer.
After a muggy July like we've had, it's hard to argue. Wednesday promises another bout of the kind of weather that turns the bones to overcooked linguini and drains the sap of life from the soul.
But before we all melt into a puddle of self-pity, consider a midsummer counter-argument: Toronto weather isn't all that bad. Compared to the alternatives, in fact, it's pretty darn good.
True, we suffer from extremes. If you follow the lines of latitude on a map with your finger, you will see that Toronto is more southerly than London, Paris and Milan - indeed not much more northerly than Rome. Yet we experience blasts of dry, cold Arctic air in the winter and surges of hot, humid Gulf air in the summer.
In The Natural History of Ontario, F. Kenneth Hare explains that the high western mountains of North America fend off the free flow of Pacific air that might otherwise cool the centre of the continent the way Atlantic air moderates Western Europe's climate. Our southern flanks, by contrast, have no defences against soupy Gulf air.
Some experts say our extreme weather is a product of a moderated continental climate. Prof. Hare argues that a better adjective would be "monsoonal." Our climate, he says, is a lot like that of Japan or Korea, which are influenced by the cold winter monsoon from Siberia and the muggy summer monsoon from the tropics.
Fortunately, unlike the Far East, we don't have typhoons (the eastern version of the hurricane). In fact, if you prefer to take the glass half full, there are quite a few climate curses we don't suffer.
We don't usually get the tornadoes and other severe storms that plague Southwestern Ontario or the Prairie provinces. We don't get the huge dumps of snow that afflict other lakeside cities, such as knee-deep Buffalo.
Our extremes are less extreme and less long-lasting that those of some other cities because of the moderating effect of the Great Lakes, not just Lake Ontario but Lake Erie, Lake Huron and Georgian Bay.
The authors of The Climate of Metropolitan Toronto note that Lake Ontario, with its great depths, is 6 to 12 degrees colder than the land during the summer, easing our heat waves. A lake breeze can bring the downtown temperature down as much as 15 degrees, although usually more like 3 or 4. In winter, meanwhile, Toronto is on average 3 degrees warmer than places in similar latitudes - again, because of the effect of the lakes.
Our heat waves can be intense, but they rarely last long. We get about six days a year where the temperature is 32 degrees or above. Our winters are comparatively moderate. As the city's website somewhat smugly notes, "Tales of igloos and sub-zero temperatures might be used to describe other cities in Canada, but not Toronto. During winter months, the average daytime temperature, with the exception of January, the coldest month, hovers just slightly below freezing and a snowfall of more than 10 cm is unusual."
You want cold? Try Montreal. The average minimum temperature there in January is -15, the average maximum -6. The January figures for Toronto are -7 and -1. You want snow? Go to Ottawa, which gets an average 235 centimetres a year to our 133.
In fact, compare Toronto's climate to that of almost any decent-sized Canadian city and we come off pretty well. Vancouver on a clear day is heaven on earth, but after a few weeks of sunless winter you want to open a vein. Vancouver gets 1,230 millimetres of precipitation a year; we get 810.
Calgary? Lovely place, I'm sure, but they got snow at the end of May this year. Halifax? As the Living in Canada website diplomatically puts it, "Sunshine is somewhat less common in Halifax than in most Canadian cities owing to Nova Scotia's notorious fogs. Halifax has over 100 days of mist or fog each year." Edmonton? It's been said that the cold can crack the soles of your shoes.
So, yes, Toronto has some rotten weather, but think about it: You could live in Winnipeg.