June 30
Wow, June is gone already? That was uneventful.
No summer-like storms, no rain, about a dozen frost warnings and no 30C for the first time I can remember.
July will be an improvement regardless what happens.
The past two days have been trying to act more summery, but it has been too cold and dry for anything to get going for real. Yesterday was a pretty nice setup in the neighborhood, if it had been 30C. Plenty of shear upstairs and a stiff southeast breeze got things churning out in the hills early in the afternoon, a few nice cells rolled in but the bases were two miles up and most of them could not keep going with the lack of juice at the surface. I drove around the countryside for 8 or so hours and 400km getting nice car washes in Sylvan Lake, south of Rimbey, and a real good wash in Red Deer to end the night, but that was about it. Nothing very photogenic until I was heading home from Rimbey and spied a nice lowering under a cell right over the house. From 30 miles away. By the time I got here, it was halfway to Pine Lake, so I headed off after it, but soon after I got east of the QE2 it started to evaporate.
A small patch of updraft base with a little bit of precip to it’s north that I had been ahead of on the way east now took over the show. As this little embedded cell approached the ridge east of Red Deer it started to form a wispy roll of cloud below the base. Within 5 minutes it was a thick roll and 15 minutes later it was a huge roll of lifting cloud attached in the middle to the base of a suddenly much larger storm. It got very angry east of Red Deer in the radar hills, which is not a nice place to get stuck in the dark, I stayed well back of the heavy lightning but still found some small hail and torrential rain in there.
Made it back to Red Deer just as the last active cell was moving in from the west, crackling with lightning. While heading to a fave spot to set up, some unfinished and unsigned road construction just about cost a tow job out of the ditch, and I missed the photo ops before the deluge hit again.
Saw many inches of rain through the day, but the dryline was two miles north of here. 16 drops yesterday and another 12 today don’t add up to a teaspoon. The lawns of Red Deer and Sylvan Lake must be happy, ours is not. It’s crispy.
Happy Canada Day everyone!
Mud bogs at Dickson – 1pm
Fireworks at dusk in Spruceview, Stettler, Eckville, Red Deer
After seeing the west of Red Deer storm brewing and get more intense on radar, I went and had a look south of Sylvan, and turned around after seeing how high the base base was. =/
July 1st, 2009 at 8:44 amI got home in time for the much needed rain, which was the best part of the storm! I believe we got somewhere between 10-15 mm by the end of the night. The back end of the first storm looked pretty, it would have been a nice shot with some canola (shouldn’t be too much longer) to give some contrast. Hoping for some surface based action soon. Happy Canada Day! Nice photo’s of Sheep Valley Pat! No slow shutter speed on the falls!?!?
Good work Pat! I’m hoping for some action when I come up to Montana this weekend.
July 1st, 2009 at 11:40 amThanks guys
Brandon no F22 on the falls nope, we left the tripod in the trunk the whole day, too busy hiking around the river’s edge to be packing that thing along. Nice country in there, will have to go back and look around some more.
Hey Dann good luck with the weather on your trip, you seem to have the luck with you this year, maybe you can spread a bit over the border while you are close?
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:02 amGive a shout if you are going to stray across and play some canuck storms
I am currently passport-less. Last time I tried to cross back into the US, I got hassled for a half hour. Not going to repeat that experience!
July 2nd, 2009 at 8:16 am