Once upon a time, there were over 250 weather stations collecting bright sunshine data in Canada each month.
Alas we are now down to 7 stations. In 3 provinces. And only 5 of the 7 are considered reliable enough or old enough to have “% of Normals” calculated.
March 2013 was pretty sunny in BC (really Vancouver Island / Vancouver) where sunshine was around 115% of normal (the 1971-2000 average).
(I’m not sure why Vancouver has an NA for % of normal as it usually has a value )
I think most of the sunshine arrived the last week of March.
Goose A was pretty gloomy. 61% of normal.
| Province | Station | Year | Month | Bright Sunshine Hours | Bright Sunshine % of Normal |
| BC | VICTORIA INTL A | 2013 | 3 | 160 | 112 |
| BC | COMOX A | 2013 | 3 | 144 | 115 |
| BC | VANCOUVER INTL A | 2013 | 3 | 156 | NA |
| ONT | WIARTON A | 2013 | 3 | 130 | 88 |
| ONT | TORONTO LESTER B. PEARSO | 2013 | 3 | 146 | NA |
| NFLD | CARTWRIGHT | 2013 | 3 | 58 | NA |
| NFLD | GOOSE A | 2013 | 3 | 82 | 61 |
sunshine hours 
Here’s one for you… The coldest temperature recorded in BC over this past winter (including November and March) was a -37 reading at Charlie Lake (near Fort St John). This past winter the first time that the temperature had not dropped below -37 in BC since the winter of 1925/26 when the coldest reading in BC (Hudson Hope) never dropped below -30.
BTW, the season of 1925/26 was so mild that Victoria made it through the entire winter without dropping below +1, marking the first and only time this has ever happened anywhere in Canada.
Apologies for the typo. It should read: “This marks the first time that the temperature had not dropped below -37 in BC since the winter of 1925/26 when the coldest reading in BC (Hudson Hope) never dropped below -30. “
Charlie Lake has no data in the monthly summaries past April 2012.
Nope… http://www.climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca/climateData/dailydata_e.html?timeframe=2&Prov=BC&StationID=1398&dlyRange=1988-10-01|2013-01-31&Year=2013&Month=1&Day=1
As for sunshine, I have done some research on sunshine in BC by comparing apples to apples (same year vs same year). From this data, Victoria and Cranbrook are the sunniest places in the province, but in March Puntzi Mountain is the sunniest place (followed closely by Fort St John and Fort Nelson). Counter-intuitively, Victoria, the most southerly place in BC, gets more sunshine than anyone during the summer, while the most northern weather stations, Fort St John and Fort Nelson, are near the top for sunshine during the winter. Only the Chilcotin area of the province (Puntzi Mountain and Anahim Lake), situated in the central interior, is sunnier than Fort St John during the winter.
Where do you get the monthly sunshine data? I haven’t been able to find that on the EC climate data website.
From the monthly summaries. But there is only 1 station reporting (if that)
This url gets you a csv file of Dec 2016 summary.
http://climate.weather.gc.ca/prods_servs/cdn_climate_summary_report_e.html?intMonth=12&intYear=2015&prov=&dataFormat=csv&btnSubmit=Download+Data
Right you are. Charlie Lake is missing from March 2013 though.
http://climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca/prods_servs/cdn_climate_summary_report_e.html?intMonth=3&intYear=2013&prov=BC&txtFormat=text&btnSubmit=Submit