Environment Canada's senior climatologist isn't mincing words when it comes to the winter Ottawans have endured.

"If I was awarding the gold medal for winter misery I think it would go to Ottawa," Dave Phillips told host Robyn Bresnahan on Ottawa Morning Friday. "You people have dealt with freezing rain, the ice pellets, the cold, the snow.

"You've dealt with a tough winter," Phillips confirmed. "You haven't got any kind of break."

But before we wish for an abrupt end to winter, Phillips warned, we should be wary of the potential for spring flooding.

"I think we want kind of a normal spring where we ease out of winter ... because of all the snow sitting on the ground there," Phillips said. "In Ottawa you had 50 per cent more snow there than you'd normally get."

Dave Phillips gives Ottawa the gold star for winter misery. (Jason Viau/CBC)

Phillips said the first two weeks of March will remain unseasonably chilly before the milder weather finally arrives.

Ottawa's not alone in its misery: the capital has plenty of company, with below-average temperatures chilling Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

Don't worry, Ottawa: there's light at the end of that cold, dark tunnel. (CBC)

Don't put the shovels away just yet: historically, Ottawa gets more than 40 centimetres of snow after March 1.

In the short term, the thermometer is set to rise to just below freezing over the weekend before colder temperatures return next week.