Alberta Foothills Weather

Almost a crippler, but not quite. It certainly brought things to a crawl for a while.
24 hours of snow left 20-25 cm in the yard, and has left the fields looking prime for a snort on the sleds. Winds just short of wicked smoothed everything out nicely but also blew our road in pretty good last night. Luckily the graderman came along this afternoon so all is good and we are free again. With the wind switching from east to north to west and snow falling the whole time, drifts are parked in all directions. Not that I am complaining about the lack of a rude wind, but had we gotten a few hours of 50Kmh there would have been some terrific sculptures out there today.
Not a lot of chaos on the roads that I heard of, just a lot of slow journeys. People knew it was coming. Many country roads are still in bad shape, all bus services in the Chinook’s Edge School Division (Red Deer to Carstairs), both urban and rural have been cancelled for Wednesday.

A few spots that didn’t make the snow sccumulation list below were Sunshine Valley west of Banff which gained 1M(3feet), Marmot Basin in Jasper with 37cm. As seen in the XSM 24 hour accumulation image below, there were heavy bands of snow through Airdrie, Olds and off to the east of the QE2 which makes me want to take a spin out there and see what kind of blanket they got out in windmill country, but west is the more likely route.
The Icefields Parkway between Lake Louise and Jasper was closed early in the event, there should be some amazing scenery out there, feet of fresh snow and avalanches crashing down in the warm temperatures that are inbound.

As the EC forecast sits now, it calls for +8 and +9 for Thursday and Friday. It will be interesting to see if we can get there with a completely white landscape and albedo in full effect. With all that pavement, Calgary should have no problem warming up, and already they are talking about flooding by the weekend with the big melt.
Now that we finally have enough snow for a sled, I want some more.

For three weeks I have tried to hack up a post about how non-wintery this winter has been, and every time I tried, I could only think of the boredom and nothing ever happened. It’s been so long since the last post I can’t remember what was going on during our one week of real winter. Sure it was cold but a week of it does not a winter make.
Generally, this winter has been a real cakewalk. Most of the southern half of the province has been brown for the majority of it, the occasional squall flying through whitens the prairie in streaks, but it doesn’t last.
Trying to find something to take a photo of has been next to impossible for me, the list of whys is ten feet long. It seems we have been stuck in a sort of stasis here, still white in the fields around, a inch or two of flakes here and there just to keep a cover but never enough for a sled. No nice waves, no big optic shows, no drifts, ONE frost. Temperatures hovering right around the freezing mark and albedo effect have kept a nice base layer of divot filling snow, a few brown bits were just starting to stick out before we got 10cm Sunday night, a few more over the week and a shot of wind. Now everything is smooth and setup nicely for what could be coming over the next 24 hours. 15cm and I think we can drag the the Cats out for a ride.

Could be a foot, could be an inch.
A nice big bomb is crashing the coast, expected to reform near Calgary tomorrow morning, then the fun begins.
Southeast winds are already heading toward the low, by noon tomorrow they should be flying south to fill the hole, laden with fresh snow. PASPC mentioned optimum conditions for dendritic growth and 15:1 snow/water ratio, which means goosefeathers, piles of them.
A snowfall warning is in effect for an area from Grande Prairie to Oyen, winter storm warnings should start flying when the wind picks up. It’s a nice setup, but there is no block to the east so it will scoot past quickly.
Hard to believe, for me anyway, that spring is less than a month away already. Is this our last taste of winter already?

Before scouring the driveway of the 10cm we picked up Sunday, I decided to set up a camera and see what a time lapse of the procedure would look like. 2 hours in 30 seconds. I wish!

The weather looked fine until we got there.
For a week, Brandon Brown and I had been planning a trip to Abraham Lake on Saturday, before the cold arrived. Right up till the night before the models were showing nice conditions out there, light wind, with a good chance for some nice sunrise clouds. On the road shortly after 5am it looked good all the way out, overhead we could see the edge of the ridge to the south and even a few lenticular looking things in the moonlight.
The wind started to pick up near Nordegg and was ripping at Windy Point, a little clipper low to the east was pulling air through the valley. We found calm at Cline River for a sunrise try, open turquoise water gushing into Abraham Lake with oodles of icy treats everywhere, but no happy light. Snow showers wafting down the peaks and thin cloud piling up against the front range cut off most of the sunrise, the sun only peeking through the haze a few times all morning. The wind came out again as we got to the Kootenay Plains and stayed with us for the rest of the ride. When we got out for a look near Bighorn Dam it was really chewing on my face. Coming straight down the lake at 30-50kmh, I hid from it in the trees peeking out at Brandon down on the ice shooting head on into the teeth of it.
Winter chased us out and all the way home, ending the day with a snow squall at Gleniffer Lake when we tried for a sunset stop.
I didn’t take a lot of photos, but we did hike around a fair bit and got to absorb some of the most beautiful country in the world. Getting to the Siffleur River for a drink of the scenery always makes my day, add to that some great chatter, a nice relaxed drive, and you have a great trip.

The wind picked up steadily and the temperatures started dropping as soon as we got back and then the snow started. We got maybe 5cm of white but the wind blew most of it off the roads, which were cold enough for nothing to stick for the most part. A drift here and there but really a non-event in these parts.
The temperature has been on a downward slide for the past 24 hours, sitting at -22C as I type, only 5 stations in the province are above -20, but only one is below -30, so far.
Wednesday morning is going to be a sharp one with temps getting closer to -40, but there is great news to go with that, a break in the pattern.
What was a unbreakable dome of cold to the end of the month for a several model runs, with little lows getting crushed in southern BC or bouncing off to the south, has been compromised. A low coming onshore Friday was supposed to stand no chance and get squashed in Cranbrook but now has gained some jam and is forecast to push all the way to the foothills Saturday. The cold block takes a hit and starts to come apart and then….
all bets are off.
Hints of a big low spinning into the coast and up to the Gulf of Alaska next week could be good news if it holds.
Going by what the models say, it shouldn’t look much different snow-wise around here 10 days from now. BC is the place to be if you want snow, they have a lot more in the forecast for the next week. Still a good chance for a change before then, it could push west a bit more and give us a dump, it doesn’t have far to push at this point.
I’m on the fence whether I want snow now or not.

One more shot of nice and off the deep end we go.
It’s been nicer than it should be since the last post, one little taste of winter but not enough to harden us up for what is coming. I can visulize Bill Matheson making vigorous downward crushing jestures while telling us about the “most dreaded of all meteorological phenomena – the Siberian high” on the weather tonight on ITV. 30 years ago. Sigh.

The snow scene around here is grim is you are a sledder, but pretty darn sweet if you are a mama deer, or any outdoor critter for that matter. At this point, they have had a two month holiday, probably looking for somewhere to cool off most of the time. We took a little spin out west on Sunday, it was hard to tell what time of the year it was. Mostly it looked and felt like April, we found 11C in a few spots where the chinook winds were blowing.

The bitter cold that was supposed to be here yesterday has been pushed back for the last time. The low that did the pushing sweeps past tomorrow to the north, the next one in line is the killer for us. It tracks along the Alaska coast and skirts the southern edge of the cold over northern BC, reforms right here somewhere on Saturday night and yanks down a seemingly bottomless pool of arctic air behind it on Sunday. There is a chance for some large temperature gradients and maybe some significant snowfalls along the battle lines mid next week, which are forming up through southern BC and along the Rockies and foothills. Looking very cold for the majority of the prairies all the way to February. Yuck.

Fingers crossed for nice weather Saturday morning, a jaunt to the mountains before what could be a long stretch inside.

15C is a bit silly for this time of year, but I didn’t hear too many people complaining about it Wednesday.
Anywhere without snow, which is anywhere south or east of here, gained a few more degrees than those of us surrounded by white. We managed 6.5C out in the middle of a field, a few more C were to be had closer to the city as the fields turn to pavement, while ~30 miles southwest it was 15C in Sundre, right under chinook arch.
Gee what a nice day, the local beehive was fully alive and buzzing, there were even some optics to start the year, playing in the fine feathery edge of the wave.

Although it’s only been a few days since the last post, it seems like another large bite has been chewed out of winter. Perhaps its the relief of seeing the gruesome crush of cold that was forecast for the 11th piffle out a bit, leaving just enough to temper us for what is inevitably coming.
The Hawaiian pipleline that has been miraculously holding, concentrating the cold way up north, must break down at some point. As of this evening’s GFS run, this is now going to happen on Sunday, the 15th. It looks like a water balloon popping in slow motion, with arctic air gushing out. I’ve got my fingers crossed for an extension of the tropical push instead. A bit more snow is starting to show further down the line but nothing epic yet.
Not that the epic ones show at 10 days out anyway.
If old man winter is going to have his fun this year he better get at it, it’s going to be March before he knows it.