Alberta Foothills Weather

It’s rare that the blog strays too far off the Alberta foothills, but living in the middle of hail alley makes events like this yell out. Football sized hail? No thanks!
Vivan, South Dakota took a wicked beating on July 23 when hail up to 1.8 POUNDS(816g) – 8inches(20cm) in diameter – 18.5inch(47cm) circumference, started raining from the sky. It punched multiple holes straight through roofs and ceilings, left coffee can sized craters in the ground. Sitting in a car was not a safe place to be. At least 5 people were injured on the interstate from hail smashing through windshields.
From link#2… “There was lots bigger ones than the one I got,” he said. “My mother seen one as big as a football, she claims.”
(Link1) (Link2) (Link3) (Link4) (Link5)

Another hail story caught my eye today. A hutterite colony in southern Manitoba near Elie was hit by a hailstorm on Monday the 26th that killed hundreds of the geese they raise as livestock. (Link)
That led to some googling which led to a story about Saskatchewan’s insurance taking a $65 million hit from all the storms they have had, and that figure doesn’t count the North Battleford flooding or the Radville golfballing. (Link)

Still waiting for the grand total from Calgary’s July 12 hailstorm, but it promises to be a large tab.
“TD Insurance has been flooded with more than 9,000 calls.
“We’re probably breaking records in terms of a hailstorm for Alberta,” said vice-president and chief underwriter Henry Blumenthal.”(Link)
The University of Calgary estimates $100,000 damage just to the greenouse.(Link)(Video)

The first week of August has traditionally been a bad week around here for nasty, ugly storms.
Last year was the Big Valley Jamboree catastrophe and the brutal hailstorm that tore through Sundre and Carstairs. (Link) (Link)
2006 had the wicked one that mowed through Spruceview, Markerville, our yard and Springbrook. (Link)
Then there was August 2, 2002.

There have been plenty of convective goodies to watch every day since last post. A good drenching to kick off Westerner Days, some nice puffs to watch not far to the north on Saturday, then a beautiful low-precip foothills supercell for Sunday. Everything has been avoiding the yard, so far.

Waiting and watching most of Sunday afternoon for something to pop in the hills, I had pretty much written the day off, it seemed like nothing could get going and perhaps the cap would win the day, so I got doing some other things only to miss the beginning of the eruption west of Sundre.
Brandon was down there sniffing around for initiation all afternoon and shot me a txt that there was something going up, and after a peek at the radar I was on the road west hoping for a sneak around the backside of what was now a really good looking storm. It was churning away just west of Sundre when I left, not moving much until I got halfway to Caroline, then it took off east and I missed some interesting looking stuff on the trip to Sundre as it got away on me a bit. I didn’t see any hail in Sundre but there was probably some there somewhere. I caught up with it again just east of Sundre and bailed south on #22 to avoid precip, then followed it across to Didsbury, where I talked to a couple Mounties who were watching the show from the detachment. They said small hail and lots of spinny stuff was just ahead of me. Came across the first hail shred of the tour just east of Didsbury at the #2a instersection, a few leaves and branches but no carnage that I saw. One of the zillion photos from this storm on TWN‘s website is of some rather large hail, approaching golfball size from Didsbury, must have been from just north of town as the core of the storm appears to have squeezed between Olds and didsbury.
I haven’t heard of or seen anything about funnels, which is somewhat surprising, the whole thing was rotating for a good long time, lots of little twisty updrafts on the backside, walls forming up and flying apart.
Brandon was on this thing from it’s first breath and was on the mothership side of it the whole way, I can’t wait to see what he’s got on his blog Prairie Storm Tranquility.
Thanks to Jon Koch who sent in the first two photos and a Youtube Video from Olds of what appears to be a wall cloud spinning up. There were lots of folks out watching this beauty along the tour, groups of cars parked all along the way with cameras out, more people than I have ever seen on an Alberta storm. If there was a funnel somewhere, there should be a photo or video of it. Good to see many eyes on a storm like this.
Radar loop(~1mb)
Storm track

Time flies when it’s nice outside, I’m missing a few days this week and can’t believe it’s Wednesday night already. Playing catch up with a few photos of last Sunday’s offerings. A nice storm caught a stiff low level wind west of Innisfail and developed two weak mesos, one cyclonic on the south side and then an anti on the north side. A few hours after that evaporated, a very electrical storm passed over Sylvan Lake and Red Deer, but it was also packing plenty of wind and rain which made taking photos a pain in the butt and I wound up with nothing.
13mm in the rain guage since last post.

Didn’t have to go too far to take in some of today’s summer scenery.
Storms fired off early this afternoon in the foothills to the northwest of here. Watches were out early all the way from Airdire to Swan Hills and it really looked like there was a good chance something rude would roll over here this afternoon, but it wasn’t to be. A storm on the Drayton Valley track took over on the south end of action, blowing up nicely around Pigeon Lake before wiping across Wetaskiwin. I caught the next one in line, which took off near Rimbey and got angry looking for a few minutes, but didn’t show me a funnel or anything like that.
Didn’t see much today but it’s nice to get out for a spin on a warm summer aft while the canola is still in bloom.
Carvel Radar loop(1.5mb)

Lots to see in Southern Alberta the past few days.
Sunday afternoon we were out west of here trolling for storms and caught a nice one forming up west of Caroline, in dead air. Only a dozen or so miles to the east was a brisk and moist SSE wind. After using up it’s dose of foothills magic, it spun out into a classic shelfy hailer, handing off its spin to the next cell south, which would go on to golfball Sundre. After a quick drop off pit-stop at home I tried to head south to get in front of the Sundre storm, but there was no way to beat it to Olds so I snuck around the backside between our storm and that one, a relaxing hail spotting tour down 2A. Never did find any haildrifts or even any left on the road anywhere, but did stick my nose in too far a few times and got beaned by large pea sized hail. The little patch of vorticity handed off to the southeast a few times, erupting new cells and moving on, until it hit the good lower level winds just east of Carstairs. It stopped moving southeast and sat there for a while, building up a beautiful wall cloud that lasted for a good half hour before slowly coming apart. The combination of storm direction, mainly clear skies to the west, and being just before sunset gave some amazing, constantly changing light. One of the prettiest storms I’ve had the pleasure to chase. Found some hailnuts(walnut size) laying around in the fields and plenty of standing water but didn’t see any damage. Talked to some folks at an acreage that said there was lots of hail but not much wind, minor shred.
July 11 RADAR Loop(1.5mb)
Yesterday was supposed to be an AB/SK border show but Calgary got their taste of Mother Nature’s Stampede early in the afternoon when a cell blew up in the foothills southwest of Cochrane and crashed out on Calgary, golfballing a good portion of the city, without warning. Lots of busted windows and dented cars around the University of Calgary.
A fantastic looking storm near Strathmore had a tornado warning issued on shortly afterward, haven’t heard of any tornadoes though. More tornado watches as that mess tracked off toward Coronation and I lost interest. Then came the rain and wind, starting off with a 95kmh gust and sideways sheets of rain.
We had 35mm already in the can when a rainfall warning was issued covering most of central Alberta for 50-70mm to come, as of 7pm it’s still going and we have 106mm(4in.) in the gauge.
July 12 RADAR Loop(1.5mb)