Alberta Foothills Weather

July 5

Pat Boomer — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 07:17:30 +0000

Suspecting something might boil up and slide out of the foothills this afternoon, we headed for Olds around 1 to see what was happening down that way. Nothing but some pretty cumulus around as we wandered along over Eagle Hill and back towards home thru Kevisville. We could see a few high based cells trying to get going to the north, but decided to call it a day by 5.
Just got home and checked the radar to see a cell erupting northwest of Caroline again, so we hopped back in the car and headed west for a look. As soon as we turned west, the cell split, with one heading northwest and the other ESE. We chose the middle and drove up between them. The north cell quickly built up, then fell out just as fast. Once there was a bit of separation, the south cell flared up and started to drop what looked like hail from a distance so we cut around the back of it and started to follow it back towards home. By this time it was dropping some serious precip and appeared to be heading right for the flower patch, so we decided to try the edge of the core and see it we could scoot south of it and get home for the save.
No such luck. A few miles east of Spruceview, just into the south edge of the core, we hit torrential rain, then a deluge of pea and slightly larger hail. Could barely see the windshield wipers so we piled into the first approach we could find which luckily was a driveway lined with big spruce trees. Amazing downpour of ice that lasted a good4 or 5 minutes and left a few inches on the ground. It’s been a while since we’ve seen hail like that. The cell was moving slowly, so we headed back west a few miles then north 4 and blew back east past it, beating it here, where we only got 1mm of rain. It displayed some nice structure as it passed just north of Innisail before fizzling out.
Looking back at the radar, it tracked straight down the north side of hwy#54, laying down a parallel hail track to yesterday’s storm, immediately to the south. We had a scope around for damage from yesterday while we were cruising around, but the crops are a bit behind and that seemed to have saved them from serious harm. A few leaves laying around in the canola patch and some shredded poplar leaves on the roads, but not much else that we could see.

July 4

Pat Boomer — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 05:54:42 +0000

A fantastic Alberta foothills supercell show today for the folks west of Red Deer.
Around 2pm, towers began to rise over the foothills, and by 4:30 we were sitting between Caroline and Rocky Mountain house watching a beautiful storm move out to the east. It took a few wiggles to the north and south as it slowly moved toward Red Deer, dropping 30mm hail and torrential rain along the way. Constant bombardment by the hail seeding planes from Weather Modification hopefully helped reduce the crop damage, but I suspect there will be some out there as the core was pretty thick for about a 20 mile strip.
Some fairly intense rotation in the tail end of it from just north of Markerville to south of Sylvan lake for about 20 minutes before the storm was lifted/eaten/destroyed by a new cell starting up near Gleniffer Lake, which quickly blew up and began to drop hail on the Red Deer river valley west of Innisfail before petering out just east of town.

Local storm chaser Brandon Brown was out west chasing the same storm we were watching and sent in these shots from his trip. Thanks Brandon, great pics!

July 3

Pat Boomer — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 06:52:36 +0000

We spent most of the afternoon trolling the foothills west of Caroline for anything that might decide to pick up and move out to the east, but nothing did, with hwy#22 being the cutoff line again. Some nice towers but mile high bases and lots of smoke around, making for less than perfect viewing.
Shortly after arriving back at home and grabbing some din din, the best storms we have seen around here for a while came flying over the mountains from BC and really lit up all the way to about Innisfail/ Sylvan Lake before petering out. Beautiful show with lots of beefy cloud to ground bolts.
More goodies tomorrow? After a brief check of the forecast models, it looks like a big mess to me. I think it’ll be a “wait and see what pops up” day for us.

June 30

Pat Boomer — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:46:23 +0000

Convection began early this morning in the mountains west of here and we were on our way out to see what was up. The air was thick and smoky this morning so it took a few miles before we got to see any sort of base to the grey mass that was already moving in from Rocky. Halfway to Caroline we could finally see nice towers going up out in the mountains, but most had no bases, those that did were a mile high, and the majority were falling out already.
We almost turned around right there, but it was such a nice morning we decided to head out towards Tay river and see if anything could get going out there. A constant stream of holday trailers heading home all the way out, then hardly anybody around once we got out there.
Nice towers were continuing to brew up over the front range of the Rockies and lightning was starting up over the foothills so we decided to tour down the trunk road south from Corkscrew mountain. Traveling down the pine tree tunnel along the east side of Marble mountain we were treated to numerous electric blue CG lightning strikes to the nearby peaks. You can’t see far in there, but you didn’t need to.
There seemed to be some good action towards the James Wilson rec area, so we headed that way, into some heavy rain and more close strikes but missing out on the pea sized hail we found in the grass at a pit stop.
That was about it. We could see the storms were taking a south turn as they were exiting the mountains(not towards home) and it was still early, we decided to head to Limestone mountain and see if any more goods would fire up around there, but the show was mostly over and all that was left were a few nice towers that roared up suddenly and died quickly.
On our way home, one of the nicest cells of the day rose up west of Rocky, a giant mushroom tower with a nice low base, but we weren’t into a u-turn and it didn’t amount to anything anyway.
Nothing got very far out of the foothills today, with hwy#22 seemingly the cutoff point. Heard a report on TWN of a funnel near Nordegg and enough pea sized hail to accumulate in Bragg Creek but nothing else.

No chance to grab any lightning in the rain and trees, no real interesting cloud structure that we saw, a few deer posed for us and we spotted a grizzy bear but it wouldn’t let us take it’s pic, so here are a few shots of the Alberta foothills around and west of Limestone mountain.

June 29

Pat Boomer — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:01:37 +0000

Summer begins for real.
The heat finally arrived today, with 30C showing up at many if not most stations in Alberta, a number of records broken, and clear skies for hundreds of miles in all directions. Sat in the cool basement most of the afternoon wishing for something to fire up along the foothills, to no avail. Too warm upstairs today and nothing around to trigger anything more than a few tiny little cumulus that were quickly wiped away.
That appears to change tomorrow afternoon as the upper levels cool to half of what they were today and much better moisture arrives at all levels. With a forecast high of 30C again and humidity over 50% , tomorrow looks to me like it could be an explosive day if everything comes together.
Or not. In this afternoon’s forecast, the folks at Environment Canada mentioned a chance of thunderstorms for tomorrow afternoon, then a few hours later changed to sunny with a few clouds in the eve.
Guess we’ll have to see what the PASPC has to say in the morning, but it does sound like a nice day to set up a lawnchair in the foothills and watch some towers go up.
Tuesday sounds thundery too, but I hope it can hold off until later on in the aft so we can enjoy the Dickson Mud Bogs without getting zotted or hailed on.

Not much for photos this week, a gusty little front moved thru on the 26th that had some interesting shapes, a duck lifting off about 1/320 of a sec before the dog hit the water a foot away this afternoon, and a sunset from tonight. If we get skunked tomorrow, at least we should be able to grab some bog shots Tuesday.

June 25

Pat Boomer — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:46:11 +0000

Things are warming up around here.
Better looking storms rolling out of the foothills now, a few nice cells around Rocky and up to Drayton Valley yesterday, then a lone cell today that tracked all the way from west of Caroline out past Three hills and is still going in Saskatchewan. Reports of golf ball sized bail in Bowden as it passed over, ~45 minutes after this shot.

It didn’t look like much as it passed south of here, but I had plans and couldn’t chase it anyway. Brandon met up with it near Innisfail, but it didn’t look like much there either, so he headed up to Ponoka to intercept another storm moving in from the Drayton Valley area, and sent this photo in.

After having a look at the forecast models this eve, I know nothing. What I got out of it amounts to this: Something wet tomorrow, nothing Friday, warming up nicely Saturday with a chance of a rumble, toasty on Sunday with a better chance of a rumble, and more rumbles Monday. If we get up to the high 20’s like EC is calling for over the weekend, and the forces align, it could get interesting.

June 23

Pat Boomer — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:43:37 +0000

Not much to report since the last post. A few beautiful days, a chilly and moist Sunday, then a few thunderstorms late tonight. Unsettled June weather, and about the same as we got last year but a bit colder. More of the same for the next few days apparently. 2:30am, just got back from chasing lightning around the neighborhood that didn’t want to be photographed, and that’s a wrap for tonight.
These were about 20 miles to the south, jumping out of the rain.

These two shots are of the same storm west of Red Deer on June 20.

June 18

Pat Boomer — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 05:34:24 +0000

A bit more excitement around here today.
By noon things had begun to bubble up out in the foothills and by 2 there was a line of thunderstorms banging away just southwest of here. Not a lot of zing to anything I saw today, and we got nothing more than 10mm of soft rain but there was likely some hail around too, weathermod’s hail planes were out seeding most of the afternoon. I expected more out of the storms today with the nice southeast breeze, but it was a cool day, not reaching 20C before the first line rolled over and quickly dropped the temps down to the low teens, ending the show for the day.
There was some nice eye candy out there if you are a cloud watcher. Around 4:30, amazing mammatus with the biggest mams I have seen around these parts suddenly appeared under the anvil of a little cell to the south and within 10 minutes were gone.
Sounds like sunny for the next few days, the crops around here certainly do need it.

June 17

Pat Boomer — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 06:38:21 +0000

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.

June 15

Pat Boomer — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 07:31:03 +0000

Not much weather to look at around here this weekend, a bit on the cool side yesterday but nice and warm today. Both days around 2pm a few little puffs tried to get going, but nothing happened and the evenings cleared right out. The only fireworks anywhere around here were part of Sylvan Lake’s 1913 days celebrations on Saturday eve.
Great show, Thanks Sylvan!

With a return to seasonal temps this week, and the favorable southwest flow returning, the next few days could give us some more summerlike storms. Tuesday was mentioned in the chat last week as a day to watch, at the moment EnviroCan is forecasting 23C and sunny. Had a quick peek at the WRF model and Tuesday does look more interesting than it did yesterday, but I didn’t even stay in a Holiday Inn last night so I will have to wait to see what happens Tuesday morning.