A few spots that didn’t make the snow sccumulation list below were Sunshine Valley west of Banff which gained 1M(3feet), Marmot Basin in Jasper with 37cm. As seen in the XSM 24 hour accumulation image below, there were heavy bands of snow through Airdrie, Olds and off to the east of the QE2 which makes me want to take a spin out there and see what kind of blanket they got out in windmill country, but west is the more likely route.
The Icefields Parkway between Lake Louise and Jasper was closed early in the event, there should be some amazing scenery out there, feet of fresh snow and avalanches crashing down in the warm temperatures that are inbound.

As the EC forecast sits now, it calls for +8 and +9 for Thursday and Friday. It will be interesting to see if we can get there with a completely white landscape and albedo in full effect. With all that pavement, Calgary should have no problem warming up, and already they are talking about flooding by the weekend with the big melt.
Now that we finally have enough snow for a sled, I want some more.

Could be a foot, could be an inch.
A nice big bomb is crashing the coast, expected to reform near Calgary tomorrow morning, then the fun begins.
Southeast winds are already heading toward the low, by noon tomorrow they should be flying south to fill the hole, laden with fresh snow. PASPC mentioned optimum conditions for dendritic growth and 15:1 snow/water ratio, which means goosefeathers, piles of them.
A snowfall warning is in effect for an area from Grande Prairie to Oyen, winter storm warnings should start flying when the wind picks up. It’s a nice setup, but there is no block to the east so it will scoot past quickly.
Hard to believe, for me anyway, that spring is less than a month away already. Is this our last taste of winter already?

Before scouring the driveway of the 10cm we picked up Sunday, I decided to set up a camera and see what a time lapse of the procedure would look like. 2 hours in 30 seconds. I wish!

The wind picked up steadily and the temperatures started dropping as soon as we got back and then the snow started. We got maybe 5cm of white but the wind blew most of it off the roads, which were cold enough for nothing to stick for the most part. A drift here and there but really a non-event in these parts.
The temperature has been on a downward slide for the past 24 hours, sitting at -22C as I type, only 5 stations in the province are above -20, but only one is below -30, so far.
Wednesday morning is going to be a sharp one with temps getting closer to -40, but there is great news to go with that, a break in the pattern.
What was a unbreakable dome of cold to the end of the month for a several model runs, with little lows getting crushed in southern BC or bouncing off to the south, has been compromised. A low coming onshore Friday was supposed to stand no chance and get squashed in Cranbrook but now has gained some jam and is forecast to push all the way to the foothills Saturday. The cold block takes a hit and starts to come apart and then….
all bets are off.
Hints of a big low spinning into the coast and up to the Gulf of Alaska next week could be good news if it holds.
Going by what the models say, it shouldn’t look much different snow-wise around here 10 days from now. BC is the place to be if you want snow, they have a lot more in the forecast for the next week. Still a good chance for a change before then, it could push west a bit more and give us a dump, it doesn’t have far to push at this point.
I’m on the fence whether I want snow now or not.

The snow scene around here is grim is you are a sledder, but pretty darn sweet if you are a mama deer, or any outdoor critter for that matter. At this point, they have had a two month holiday, probably looking for somewhere to cool off most of the time. We took a little spin out west on Sunday, it was hard to tell what time of the year it was. Mostly it looked and felt like April, we found 11C in a few spots where the chinook winds were blowing.

The bitter cold that was supposed to be here yesterday has been pushed back for the last time. The low that did the pushing sweeps past tomorrow to the north, the next one in line is the killer for us. It tracks along the Alaska coast and skirts the southern edge of the cold over northern BC, reforms right here somewhere on Saturday night and yanks down a seemingly bottomless pool of arctic air behind it on Sunday. There is a chance for some large temperature gradients and maybe some significant snowfalls along the battle lines mid next week, which are forming up through southern BC and along the Rockies and foothills. Looking very cold for the majority of the prairies all the way to February. Yuck.

Fingers crossed for nice weather Saturday morning, a jaunt to the mountains before what could be a long stretch inside.

Although it’s only been a few days since the last post, it seems like another large bite has been chewed out of winter. Perhaps its the relief of seeing the gruesome crush of cold that was forecast for the 11th piffle out a bit, leaving just enough to temper us for what is inevitably coming.
The Hawaiian pipleline that has been miraculously holding, concentrating the cold way up north, must break down at some point. As of this evening’s GFS run, this is now going to happen on Sunday, the 15th. It looks like a water balloon popping in slow motion, with arctic air gushing out. I’ve got my fingers crossed for an extension of the tropical push instead. A bit more snow is starting to show further down the line but nothing epic yet.
Not that the epic ones show at 10 days out anyway.
If old man winter is going to have his fun this year he better get at it, it’s going to be March before he knows it.

Winter so far has been a 6 week holiday, even though it’s less than two weeks old. When winter pulls in mid November and stays till March, like it did last year, there is no happy. Busting into the new year with the balmy weather we’ve had so far has already taken a massive bite out of the season. The end is 10 days away.
Big cold is persistently showing on the long range, sweeping down on the 11th like the sword of Damocles. It may only stay a few days or it could stay till March again. Good time for folks to make sure their vehicle is ready.
We have a fair base of snow left, filling the ditches and potholes, but need at least a foot before the sleds can come out. None of that showing yet on the models.

A few of our favorite shots from 2011, only one has been on the blog before:

January 6: This was one of the few nice days of January 2011, a chinook had pushed in and these iridescent clouds were playing in the wave over the foothills.

March 17: Warm weather has been pouring in from the west for a few days after a long stretch of deep cold. Wavy bits and incoming moisture combine for a warm winter sunset.

May 2: The sun was very active in 2011, burping off dozens of big CMEs, flaring off more than it has in 8 years, but that only got me fewer Aurora photos than almost any other year in the past 10. Clouds killed a few ops but mystery got most of them. Many times I expected a hit that never came. The best thing about it? It can’t be worse for me next year.

June 21: This was the first supercell in the neighborhood for 2011. After getting lured to Innisfail by a dying cell we spied this beauty off to the west and gave chase. A fantastic cell to start the season, it sat and posed for us for a good long while. (link) (link)

July 1: Something about the first of July in Alberta makes the noctilucent clouds pop. Almost every year they show up on this night. (link)

July 4: These are some of the last sparks left in a classic LP supercell that entertained myself and the hordes of mosquitoes for a few hours west of Carstairs this night. Most of the 100+ shots from this session were ruined by Winnipeg style clouds of microvampires filling the scene. (link)

July 6: It’s not often that I drive more than an hour for a lightning op, but this eve was an exception. Training supercells were infesting the Drayton corridor with no signs of stopping, giant bolts could be seen easily from here before dark, 80 miles away, so off I went. A very nice outing, I sat on the south edge and watched the storms rake the southern edge of Edmonton with a never ending show of power. Before I knew it, it was way past midnight, way east of the QE2. A long day with an eye already on the next day. (link)

July 7: Tornado day in the neighborhood. Got down to Sundre in time to watch the birth of it all, and managed to get into position before the first of many tornadoes that day, dropped in the hills west of Bearberry. The full gamut of the chase was to be experienced, from jaw dropping awe at the sight of a massive mesocyclone in full spin only a mile away, or less. The creeping adrenaline rush when something dark is chasing you, and gaining. Finding out there was serious damage very close to where you just were. What a day. (link) (link) (link)

July 15: We spied this deer in the middle of a Canola field while out looking for a possible tornado path west of Eckville. Never did find any signs of a touchdown but this op made up for it a bit.

July 18: This one one of three trips out to the Ghostpine wind farm near Trochu this year. Not terribly exciting to a lot of people, but there is something graceful about them. Not that I would want to live anywhere near one. I’m done with the sound these things make before I can get away from them.

August 5: Timing put me on the beach at Sylvan Lake when this storm slowly rolled in. Two hail planes bombed this thing forever but never seemed to be able to dent it. I got quite a few shots of them bouncing around in the edges of the core, but this one clearly shows the plane getting lifted by the updraft as it approaches. (link)

September 10: Harvest was extremely dusty this year, this was before it got bad. Another week and all hope of seeing a hill to the west was gone for a month.

With any luck, Ma Nature will soon provide some tasty scenery, we are overdue for a frosting.
Happy New Year!
All the best to you in 2012.

It’s off to the sack early tonight in the hopes of finding clear skies for the lunar eclipse tomorrow morning. Trying to figure out where to park for this one has been a real noodle scratcher.
Total eclipse begins at 7:06 am when the moon is only 10° (a fist at armlength) above the horizon.
When it ends at 7:57 the moon is only 4° above horizon. The next issue is the angle of the dangle.
Sinking to the northwest, the moon will be at 292° when the eclipse starts and 300° when it ends.
Using The Photographer’s Ephemeris to help has only filled my mind with thoughts of locations that won’t work and now I’m more confused than ever. Thoughts of trolling the mountains in the moonlight are starting to fade… where to go?
Wherever the clouds aren’t I suppose.

Lunar Eclipse info from Shadow and Substance

IR Loop Dec. 4-6 (8mb)

The first taste of deep winter came mid-month, Edmonton Intl. Airport saw -35C on the 19th after a low swept past and sucked down some deeply frozen Alaska air that had been setting record lows up there. We didn’t even get close to that cold here, only approaching -25.
Last week saw a major push from the southwest and roaring winds with deep lee troughs forming along the hills under broad sweeping ridges of high pressure pouring over the mountains. The school in Nanton lost some of it’s roof Wednesday (link), big trucks were blowing over on the highways south of Calgary. Someone caught video of a trailer getting yanked off the back of a pickup’s hitch somewhere down there the same day (Link).

A week after the first big chill came the first big chinook.
Winds peaked Sunday and the fur began to fly, almost literally or possibly even literally I suppose. Warnings were out and everybody knew there was some wind coming, but what came was more than most were expecting.
From Innisfail to the U.S. border, reports started to flow near noon of wind damage everywhere, trucks blowing of the highways, roofing flying off, trees crashing down, huge grass fires roaring. 144km/h in Claresholm, 149km/h on the top of Bow Tower in downtown Calgary. Then news of windows breaking and a first ever closure of the city’s core, due to flying debris.
If you haven’t seen this video of a Lufthansa jet crabbing it’s way into the Calgary Airport in stiff crosswind, it’s certainly worth a watch. Peak gust at YYC was 91km/h, that must have been something to experience from the inside too!
More stories here, here, and here.
Insurance companies are talking millions of dollars in damage, a news report I saw mentioned hundreds of millions.
We were right on the edge of it, gusting to 45km/h, but a quick spin a few miles southeast to Innisfail saw a gradual increase in windspeed until we got there and saw big trees down in the town. Trees do seem to take aim at nearby vehicles when the feel they are going down.

Our first classic snow of the year came early this morning, a perfect setup it was.
10-15cm of fluff and not a great deal of wind to blow it around today makes me wonder if things are going to be a bit more pleasant in December than they were in November.
The local muskrats apparently think it will not be nice and seem to be ready for an apocalyptic winter. According to what I could glean from the web, when muskrats build low, small houses, you can expect a mild winter, with them out scurrying about in the chinooky goodness. The bigger the house they build, the worse the winter will be.
This year the musquash have built some sort of mega-condo, it’s the biggest skrat house I have ever seen, 5 or 6 feet tall, and massive. Unless there is another house in the weeds somewhere, there are four of them living in this giant house, which is also unusual.
I’m hoping they were just having a build-off with the neighbors in the next pond.

I’ve been dreading this coming winter since the end of the last one, surely it will be better? Another like last year’s and I fear for my sanity. Another month like this could be enough. Never have the cameras sat 18 days without shooting a shot.

Still waiting for the first crippler to show on the models….