Alberta Foothills Weather

June 17

An active day to the north, pretty sleepy around here.
Storms began to brew in the foothills north of Rocky Mountain house early in the afternoon, then a big one fired up just west of Rocky around 2pm and started moving east, so I went out for a look. By the time I got west of Sylvan Lake I was getting blasted by outflow and it had turned into a big black mass with the only structure to be seen up at the leading edge in a weak, ragged shelf. I waved bye and headed south to see what was next, but only a few high based little puffs were left for the rest of the day.
Shortly afterward, the storm I had been watching turned into a big squall line packing 100+ km/h winds, rain and hail from the north side of Sylvan Lake all the way up to Edmonton.
Heard on the Edmonton news that a tornado was reported near Lacombe, but that EnviroCan said it was not one. GlobalTv had footage of a flattened shop and an interview with a fellow who was in the building at the time. I’m assuming EC is calling it straight line wind damage.
Shortly after that, the squall hit Edmonton, dumping 20-40mm of rain and hail in a few minutes, flooding streets and causing all kinds of chaos as can be seen in the screen caps below from CTV news.
Not even summer yet!
After the briefest of looks at the WRF forecast model, tomorrow looks better than today? Seems like better moisture all around in a similar flow, maybe even some upslope winds?
If not, may the skies be clear so we can see the full moon at least, rising to the SE at 10:35 local time.

Thunderstorm north of Sylvan Lake, AB - June 17, 2008
Screen caps from the Edmonton news - June 17, 2008

2 Responses to “June 17”

  1. 1
    brandon Says:

    id like to be in sask today. id say straight line winds, it looked like a bow echo on radar. cant wait for july.

  2. 2
    PB Says:

    I’m glad I’m not in Sask today :)
    Looks good around here. Nice wave showing on IR just about to come across the mountains.

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