July 13
Our turn for hail today…
We were out west early this afternoon waiting for the goodies to roll out of the foothills, milling about the Caroline area for a while, then up to Rocky Mountain House by 4 to meet a big dark storm just crossing hwy#22. It tried to get organized all the way along as it took off to the southeast, but was a gusty thing that couldn’t keep it’s guts in and looked like it was dropping hail the whole way as it chased us home.
We met up with local storm chaser Brandon Brown for the first time at the intersection of 781&592 and quickly had to run back home with the core of the storm at our bumpers. After a very quick hi/bye, he peeled out to stay ahead of the nasty stuff while we tried to get yard items and flowers to safety.
Not 2 minutes later the peas and marbles began to fall and then the heavens opened and everything poured out including a golfball here and there. It lasted a good 10 minutes and left chewed flowerbeds, leaves all over the place and hail drifts that were still there at midnight.
Another storm quickly lined up after the hailer had cleared, but this one split, with the worst heading down to pound Olds with hail, and the rest fizzling out as rain around here.
Brandon was down in Olds watching the storm approach and sent in these photos:
Another local storm chaser, Brad Derzaph, was also on this storm and shot this panorama in the Olds area around the same time.
Looks like some nice storms up your way yesterday. I think there was a tornado watch for Red Deer too. We had nothing during the day but at around 11 pm we had a nice lightning show pass through with some heavy downpours. Today looks to be an exciting day. PASPC has issued this statement:
FOR SRN ALBERTA OUR INITIAL THINKING WILL BE S OF NORDEGG, AIRDRIE, ROCKY MOUNTAIN HOUSE AND OKOTOS FOR STORM INTIIATION AS NELY FLOWS AGAINST THE FOOTHILLS DEVELOP DURING THE DAY. CAPE WILL BE IN THE RANGE FROM 500 TO 800 J/KG BUT COULD BE POTENTIALLY HIGHER WITH POSSIBLE HIGHER DEW POINT DUE TO BETTER EVAPORTRANSPIRATION FROM LAST NIGHT SHOWERS AND TSTMS. AFTER THE DEVELOPMENT STORMS WILL TRACK EAST AT 40 TO 50 KM/H. EXCEPT THOSE RIGHT MOVERS. THEY WILL DEVIATE TO THE SOUTHEAST AT AROUND THE SAME SPEED. WITH THE 250 JET ALOFT, IT PROVIDES A GOOD DYNAMICS FOR SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS DEVELOPMENT WITH SHEAR IN THE ORDER OF 40 TO 50 KNOTS FROM SFC TO 6 KM. IN ADDITION SHEAR VORTICITY EMBEDDED WITHIN THE JET WILL ADD THE FUEL INTO THE STORM DEVELOPMENT. SO IT WILL BE A FAVOURABLE DAY FOR SUPERCELL WITH LARGE HAIL, AND STRONG WINDS. ACCORDING TO HODO ANALYSIS, 0-1 KM STORM RELATIVE HELICITY IS NOT IMPRESSIVE. BUT 0-3KM LOOK MORE IMPRESSIVE. SO WILL NOT RULE OUT THE POSSIBLE OF MESOCYCONES AND FUNNEL CLOUDS (WITH HIGH LCL OF A 4 TO 6K).
I’ll be out today for sure if things flare up the way they might.
July 14th, 2008 at 7:56 amwow what a day Pat
well I’m off to central America, could be some wicked equatorial storms this time of year, I’l do what I can for pictures. Its so damn muggy there I hate it. Oh well business is business. I’m really upset at missing a good storm week for south central Alberta. Airdrie had a good lightning storm at midnight last night. It was small but potent with heavy rain and pea sized hail. Take care guys, see ya next Wed , 22 July. Huesta la vista!!
July 14th, 2008 at 11:09 amThe Pine Lake tornado was 8 years ago today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Lake_Tornado
July 14th, 2008 at 2:20 pmWent chasing this afternoon and got my first severe storm of the year. I chased from Airdrie to Strathmore and got hammered by hail and loved every minute of it. Got some great pics too! This storm had a huge outflow band and covered the ground with grape sized hail and now has tornado warnings attached to it!!!
Cypress county near Seven Persons
7:48 PM MDT Tuesday 15 July 2008
Tornado warning for
Cypress county near Seven Persons continued
At 7:40 PM radar indicates a possible tornado 30 km east northeast of Bow Island moving eastward at 60 km/h.
So close yet so far!
July 15th, 2008 at 8:01 pmtypical. Me and Mike were forced to peel off that sucker when we got low on fuel. We got the early report in to our credit though and reported the rotation got tornado watched cause of that
and rightfully so. Me and mike spotted that beats as she was getting started near the foothills and followed it through rocky mountain house all the way up to Red Deer. We saw a few people on the side we passed taking pics possibly might of been either of you guys as we were all on the same roads. Our pics aernt as good cause we didnt get too see it in full force really… it was quite violent when we core punched though. 100kmph winds I was scared we had a rain wrapped in there with us.the thing was moving so fast the core pretty much kept up with us for like 20 minutes and had to drive hard to get out of it.
July 16th, 2008 at 8:45 am