Alberta Foothills Weather

After two days of stiff and cool southeast wind, today was a stunner, with a light breeze from the west and 25C.
Towers began to rise in the west before noon, and by 2pm we had a little thundershower pass over. Nothing could get going very good today, everything around here was quite high based, if [...]

Not a very nice weekend around these parts, cloudy and cold but a lot less wet than down south. We only gained another 4mm, bringing the event total to 38mm(1.5″).

Flood watches went out Sunday for a number of southern foothills rivers, but nothing much came of it and after a quick peak, levels are [...]

No funnels or interesting weather of any type around here since the last post, just a nice soaking rain. 34mm(1.3in.) over the past two days and more on the way. Saturday looks very wet for the southern foothills, the WRF model is suggesting 50mm+ for Calgary and points west then more for Sunday. [...]

FOCN45 CWWG 191900
SIGNIFICANT WEATHER DISCUSSION ISSUED BY THE PRAIRIE AND ARCTIC STORM PREDICTION CENTRE OF ENVIRONMENT CANADA AT 2:00 PM CDT MONDAY MAY 19 2008.
WRN PRAIRIES..GENERALLY QUIET TODAY OVER ALBERTA AS UPPER RIDGE BUILDS IN. ONLY SLIGHT RISK OF AN HIGH BASED ISOLATED TSTMS IN THE YQU, YPE, AND YLL REGION. MODEL UNDERDOING DEWPOINTS IN [...]

Lightning, Thunder, Hail, Finally!
A few little cells began to brew in the foothills southwest of Drayton Valley shortly after noon today and started moving quickly southeast in a strong northwesterly flow, so I went out for a look. The first little storm was already dying off before I got 5 miles from the house, but [...]

Hot, Hot, Hot!
The past few days have been downright summerlike, teetering on the edge of 30C with a nice breeze. Haven’t seen a cloud of any type for two days now, the closest one is about 500 miles away.
The countryside has undergone a fantastic transformation this week, the lawn is suddenly lush and green, leaves [...]

Gotta love May!
Friday afternoon we took a quick spin out to Caroline and Tay River to check out the snow before it disappeared, and there was still a foot of it out there after a warm sunny day. It’s all gone now and everything is going green. All that moisture has had little impact on [...]

3 feet of snow in Water Valley?!?
I’m quite impressed how well the forecast models came together on this storm and pinned the precip bullseye right where it happened. Still waiting for some updated snowfall totals from EC, but generally a stripe of 50+cm along the front range of the Rockies and the foothills from Grande [...]

Snow on the ground again.
After a disappointing, thunderstormless day of rain showers and wind around here yesterday, today is less than pleasant. Northeast wind in the 20-40km/h range at +2C with snow flurries, but hey, the grass is green where it isn’t white!
I haven’t been out to peek in the rain gauge yet, [...]

Updated @ 4pm
SEVERE WEATHER BULLETIN
ISSUED BY ENVIRONMENT CANADA
AT 3:32 PM MDT WEDNESDAY 7 MAY 2008.
———————————————————————
WATCHES/WARNINGS IN EFFECT FOR SOUTHERN ALBERTA…
SNOWFALL WARNING FOR:
=NEW= AIRDRIE - COCHRANE - OLDS - SUNDRE
=NEW= KANANASKIS - CANMORE
=NEW= BANFF NATIONAL PARK
JASPER NATIONAL PARK
NORDEGG - FORESTRY TRUNK ROAD HIGHWAY 734.
HEAVY SNOWFALL TONIGHT AND THURSDAY.
———————————————————————
==DISCUSSION==
A COLD UPPER LOW WILL MOVE OVER THE CONTINENTAL [...]