Climate and Geography
The sun shines throughout our cold winters and warm summers, illuminating the mountains in the west, and the plains in the north, centre and south.
Alberta Rocky
Mountains
The rest of the province is housed on a great plain, or prairie, which Alberta shares with Saskatchewan on the east, and with the state of Montana to the south. The plains are not totally flat. Their surface has been gouged and twisted by the action of massive glaciers that once covered the province. What is now Alberta lay buried under some 2,000 metres of ice only 8,000 or 10,000 years ago. The southern plain, which was once covered in tall grass, is today a checkerboard of farms.
Alberta Badlands
Northern Alberta is home to Wood Buffalo National Park, Canada's largest national park, and a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage site. Wood Buffalo National Park has the world's largest free-roaming bison herd, and the last natural nesting site for the whooping crane.
- Alberta Wildlife Viewing Guide
Find out about Alberta's flora and fauna. - Alberta’s Species at Risk
Learn about threatened wildlife in Alberta. - Alberta’s Watchable Wildlife
Discover what animals you can watch. - Alberta Sustainable Resource Development Fish and Wildlife Site
Learn more about Alberta's animals and fish.
Alberta's cool winter climate is a result of its northern location, which exposes residents to cold arctic air masses from the north. In contrast, summers are usually warm. Regardless of the season, Alberta's skies are often sunny.
The Rocky Mountains cast a "rain shadow" over much of Alberta. As the moist air from the Pacific Ocean rises to pass over the mountains on its way to Alberta, it is cooled, and rain or snow fall on the Pacific side of the mountains. As the air descends on Alberta, it gains heat and produces warm, dry winds.
Alberta is famous for its chinook winds, which sweep into southern Alberta several times each winter. This dry, warm wind can rapidly lift the province out of a deep freeze. During one chinook, which reached Pincher Creek on January 1962, temperatures soared from -19°C to +22°C in one hour. Source: Phillips, D. 1990. The Climate of Canada. Catalogue No. En56-1/1990E. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services of Canada.
Related Alberta Government Ministries:
Alberta Environment
Alberta Sustainable Resource Development