Alberta Foothills Weather

August 15 – Damage survey of July 30 tornado path

Pat Boomer — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:47:53 +0000

We headed out early this morning to have a look at the forest destruction in the foothills west of Sundre.
It was a beautiful morning out there, nice and warm, clear blue skies.

We spent a bit over 3 hours walking around on the south flank of Old Baldy Mountain in amazement at the sight of twisted, uprooted, shredded trees all around us. No question in my mind now that this is where the tornado formed, everything in the main damage area we looked at had been sucked to the middle from all sides, the complete opposite of a downburst, and nothing like a straight line event. Some seriously twisted up trees in there, including a large stand of mature Poplar that got cranked on pretty good. It was a mix of Pine, Spruce and Poplar, mostly mature, and now it’s a tangled mess that will be tough to clean up. Many hundreds of large Pine and Spruce were uprooted and blown/sucked over, many more than that were snapped off clean. One way or another, if you were a tree, you were going down. Only a few branchless ghosts and topless stems sticking up out of the mess. There was enough force involved to pull young spruce right out of the ground.

The damage path we could see stretched 1.7 miles, there was more on the west side we couldn’t get to, and the path disappeared over the top of the hill to the east, not sure how much further it goes that way, but it was still going hard enough when it made it to the top to take out a 1/4 mile wide swath of trees. The main patch of damage we concentrated on was almost 1/2 mile wide. Good grizzly and cougar country out there so we weren’t interested in trudging through the thick stuff too much, and were hoping there wasn’t a lot of carrion in the mess of downed trees pulling in the big toothed beasties from all around. Saw one moose all day. Good enough for us!
I was out at Pine Lake and saw what the F3 did out there, these trees looked a lot worse to me, but I’m no met so will not guess what the rating should be for this rare foothills twister. F4!
The panoramas are large, up to 4.5mb, so may take some time to load.

More on the July 30 tornado west of Sundre

Pat Boomer — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 05:43:06 +0000

It’s a good thing this tornado didn’t decide to touch down in a populated area, it was packing some punch!

A few days ago, Bob Henderson left a comment on the July 30 post:
“I was out west on Sunday August 7/10 taking pictures of wild horses. As I traveled the back roads I came into a valley that comes off the South James River. Here the road was blocked by fallen trees. When I got higher up you could see a complete path of destruction that was 1/2 mile wide by 2 miles long, where there was not a tree left standing. Trees with trunks over 2′ in diameter were broken off like twigs. In this twisted and strewn mess there was not a tree left standing. There are two small herds of wild horses in that valley and I do hope that they and all the other creatures lived through this.”

I made contact with Bob to discuss, and he sent back two photos of some pretty amazing damage, it looks like there were some large trees in there. Thanks again Bob for the photos and the tip.

This really got me wondering again about this “James River Bridge” tornado that was supposed to have happened 10 km west of Sundre in a open field near a nudist colony.
The original tornado warning stated a tornado was spotted 25km WNW of Sundre near James River Bridge.
Bob’s tree fall is almost exactly 25km WNW of Sundre, but James River Bridge in the sense of a location, is 10km due north of Sundre. There is a bridge across the James River near the tree fall, maybe that’s what they were referring to? Very confusing anyway.
Whilst out trolling last week for storms down there I stopped in at the James River Bridge Store for a soda and asked if they had seen the tornado. They hadn’t but said a photo of it was taken 4 miles south looking northeast, but nobody had seen it touch ground or knew where it did.

After seeing Bob’s photos I got thinking about the only photos I have seen of a tornado that day, taken by Jae Robbins, a spotter for GlobalTV’s Ground Force in the Edmonton zone. I looked her up and after a nice chat about the day, everything became much more clear.
The photos she and her daughter Kayleah took were from near Bearberry, looking right at Bob’s tree fall area. Jae said the structure was fantastic, there was a tube for a short while, and she could see trees flying through the air, from 10km away. That tells us there was some serious torque involved.
The photos tell the story, it’s a classic supercell tornado! Thanks again Jae and Kayleah for the photos, and for clearing things up.

We are going to head out for a look on the weekend, if any tornado damage specialists out there have any tips on what to look for in the name of science, let me know.

August 8 – Caroline to Sundre Supercell Tour

Pat Boomer — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:55:43 +0000

We’ve been choking on forest fire smoke for the past week around here, visibility has been very poor, and the storms seem to have been choking on the particulates as well.
Sunday, July 8 the smoke mostly cleared out and a nice single cell formed up out around Nordegg and started tracking toward Rocky Mountain House. It looked like it might head this way so I went out to meet it. It started to take a right turn just west of Rocky then headed south, where I met it northwest of Caroline.
It was feasting on some scuds around Cow Lake when I got first sight of it, looking a bit stretched out like it may have already blown itself apart, but there was an area of concentrated effort, and in a few minutes it gathered up a scruffy wall cloud so I went south some more to watch.
As soon as it could build anything interesting it would fall apart, constantly backbuilding further west, always trying to gather. Some nice low level inflow and surface winds from the east got it going good west of James River Bridge, forming up a beautiful lowered base and adding some stripes to the updraft.
The best part came as the sun was just setting behind the foothills, magical light like I have rarely seen.
Just west of Sundre I sat on #22 at Bearberry Creek with jaw agape watching the display in the first shot below, which is pretty much straight out of the camera.
Then it was dark and time to flee the core. Success! Made it home without any dents.
Strathmore RADAR loop (~2.5mb)
Before I can even get photos crunched up and a post made, there are more goodies firing up in the hills.

July 30 – Sundre Tornado

Pat Boomer — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 20:48:05 +0000

From the Edmonton Journal: (Link)
“Environment Canada has confirmed a tornado touched down 25 kilometres west-northwest of Sundre at. The storm has now been downgraded to a severe thunderstorm warning.
According to early reports, no one was hurt and no property damaged after the tornado made contact with the ground in a field near James River Bridge.”
Strathmore RADAR loop(2.5mb)
I am finding it hard to dig up details about this confirmed touchdown, but it appears to have been out west of Bearberry near the bridge there, close to a nudist colony where nobody saw anything.
We had just left Sylvan Lake after finishing up some business there and were near Benalto at the time this was going on, but this thing must have been behind the dark core from our veiwpoint.
After a quick pit stop at home I headed south to see what was going on, watching a real mean looking thing tracking down the foothills west of #22. I decided not to sample what looked like a dangerous hail core as it was going over Water Valley and headed for Didsbury and the 2a route.
It really didn’t look that appealing until about 6pm when it developed a huge wall cloud as it was crossing #22 near Bottrell. Unfortunately I was stuck on the QE2 in driving rain with Friday night long weekend traffic and couldn’t get a shot or even another look till the other side of Airdrie. It was looking disorganized by the time I got a good look again, but was still packing a very ugly looking core which I stayed well away from.
It looked like it might want to do something again west of Balzac around 6:20, but could not. 50-60kmh NE wind was cutting across it(outflow from storm to the NE?), lots of little spinny bits and scud bombs, even some good large scale rotation at times, but it just couldn’t organize itself. Stiff outflow winds to the south were kicking up huge dust plumes from all the construction sites on the northwest side of Calgary which probably freaked a few people out.
I decided to skirt the obvious hail core to the south and came back in behind it on Big Hill Springs road, finding some good drifts of pea to dime sized hail near the park turnoff, then a good 6 inches of it on the highway a few miles east, on the east side of the Nose Creek valley. I didn’t see any crop damage and only a light shredding of poplar leaves. Not one funnel did I see all day and only 18 photos taken.
Watching the hills again today.

“

July 28 – World record sized hail in South Dakota

Pat Boomer — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:34:53 +0000

It’s rare that the blog strays too far off the Alberta foothills, but living in the middle of hail alley makes events like this yell out. Football sized hail? No thanks!
Vivan, South Dakota took a wicked beating on July 23 when hail up to 1.8 POUNDS(816g) – 8inches(20cm) in diameter – 18.5inch(47cm) circumference, started raining from the sky. It punched multiple holes straight through roofs and ceilings, left coffee can sized craters in the ground. Sitting in a car was not a safe place to be. At least 5 people were injured on the interstate from hail smashing through windshields.
From link#2… “There was lots bigger ones than the one I got,” he said. “My mother seen one as big as a football, she claims.”
(Link1) (Link2) (Link3) (Link4) (Link5)

Another hail story caught my eye today. A hutterite colony in southern Manitoba near Elie was hit by a hailstorm on Monday the 26th that killed hundreds of the geese they raise as livestock. (Link)
That led to some googling which led to a story about Saskatchewan’s insurance taking a $65 million hit from all the storms they have had, and that figure doesn’t count the North Battleford flooding or the Radville golfballing. (Link)

Still waiting for the grand total from Calgary’s July 12 hailstorm, but it promises to be a large tab.
“TD Insurance has been flooded with more than 9,000 calls.
“We’re probably breaking records in terms of a hailstorm for Alberta,” said vice-president and chief underwriter Henry Blumenthal.”(Link)
The University of Calgary estimates $100,000 damage just to the greenouse.(Link)(Video)

The first week of August has traditionally been a bad week around here for nasty, ugly storms.
Last year was the Big Valley Jamboree catastrophe and the brutal hailstorm that tore through Sundre and Carstairs. (Link) (Link)
2006 had the wicked one that mowed through Spruceview, Markerville, our yard and Springbrook. (Link)
Then there was August 2, 2002.

July 25 – Sundre Supercell chase

Pat Boomer — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 01:02:48 +0000

There have been plenty of convective goodies to watch every day since last post. A good drenching to kick off Westerner Days, some nice puffs to watch not far to the north on Saturday, then a beautiful low-precip foothills supercell for Sunday. Everything has been avoiding the yard, so far.

Waiting and watching most of Sunday afternoon for something to pop in the hills, I had pretty much written the day off, it seemed like nothing could get going and perhaps the cap would win the day, so I got doing some other things only to miss the beginning of the eruption west of Sundre.
Brandon was down there sniffing around for initiation all afternoon and shot me a txt that there was something going up, and after a peek at the radar I was on the road west hoping for a sneak around the backside of what was now a really good looking storm. It was churning away just west of Sundre when I left, not moving much until I got halfway to Caroline, then it took off east and I missed some interesting looking stuff on the trip to Sundre as it got away on me a bit. I didn’t see any hail in Sundre but there was probably some there somewhere. I caught up with it again just east of Sundre and bailed south on #22 to avoid precip, then followed it across to Didsbury, where I talked to a couple Mounties who were watching the show from the detachment. They said small hail and lots of spinny stuff was just ahead of me. Came across the first hail shred of the tour just east of Didsbury at the #2a instersection, a few leaves and branches but no carnage that I saw. One of the zillion photos from this storm on TWN‘s website is of some rather large hail, approaching golfball size from Didsbury, must have been from just north of town as the core of the storm appears to have squeezed between Olds and didsbury.
I haven’t heard of or seen anything about funnels, which is somewhat surprising, the whole thing was rotating for a good long time, lots of little twisty updrafts on the backside, walls forming up and flying apart.
Brandon was on this thing from it’s first breath and was on the mothership side of it the whole way, I can’t wait to see what he’s got on his blog Prairie Storm Tranquility.
Thanks to Jon Koch who sent in the first two photos and a Youtube Video from Olds of what appears to be a wall cloud spinning up. There were lots of folks out watching this beauty along the tour, groups of cars parked all along the way with cameras out, more people than I have ever seen on an Alberta storm. If there was a funnel somewhere, there should be a photo or video of it. Good to see many eyes on a storm like this.
Radar loop(~1mb)
Storm track

July 21 – Catch up

Pat Boomer — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 06:41:46 +0000

Time flies when it’s nice outside, I’m missing a few days this week and can’t believe it’s Wednesday night already. Playing catch up with a few photos of last Sunday’s offerings. A nice storm caught a stiff low level wind west of Innisfail and developed two weak mesos, one cyclonic on the south side and then an anti on the north side. A few hours after that evaporated, a very electrical storm passed over Sylvan Lake and Red Deer, but it was also packing plenty of wind and rain which made taking photos a pain in the butt and I wound up with nothing.
13mm in the rain guage since last post.

July 15 – Storms to the north

Pat Boomer — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 06:13:36 +0000

Didn’t have to go too far to take in some of today’s summer scenery.
Storms fired off early this afternoon in the foothills to the northwest of here. Watches were out early all the way from Airdire to Swan Hills and it really looked like there was a good chance something rude would roll over here this afternoon, but it wasn’t to be. A storm on the Drayton Valley track took over on the south end of action, blowing up nicely around Pigeon Lake before wiping across Wetaskiwin. I caught the next one in line, which took off near Rimbey and got angry looking for a few minutes, but didn’t show me a funnel or anything like that.
Didn’t see much today but it’s nice to get out for a spin on a warm summer aft while the canola is still in bloom.
Carvel Radar loop(1.5mb)

July 13 – Big Storms, Big Rain

Pat Boomer — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:58:52 +0000

Lots to see in Southern Alberta the past few days.
Sunday afternoon we were out west of here trolling for storms and caught a nice one forming up west of Caroline, in dead air. Only a dozen or so miles to the east was a brisk and moist SSE wind. After using up it’s dose of foothills magic, it spun out into a classic shelfy hailer, handing off its spin to the next cell south, which would go on to golfball Sundre. After a quick drop off pit-stop at home I tried to head south to get in front of the Sundre storm, but there was no way to beat it to Olds so I snuck around the backside between our storm and that one, a relaxing hail spotting tour down 2A. Never did find any haildrifts or even any left on the road anywhere, but did stick my nose in too far a few times and got beaned by large pea sized hail. The little patch of vorticity handed off to the southeast a few times, erupting new cells and moving on, until it hit the good lower level winds just east of Carstairs. It stopped moving southeast and sat there for a while, building up a beautiful wall cloud that lasted for a good half hour before slowly coming apart. The combination of storm direction, mainly clear skies to the west, and being just before sunset gave some amazing, constantly changing light. One of the prettiest storms I’ve had the pleasure to chase. Found some hailnuts(walnut size) laying around in the fields and plenty of standing water but didn’t see any damage. Talked to some folks at an acreage that said there was lots of hail but not much wind, minor shred.
July 11 RADAR Loop(1.5mb)
Yesterday was supposed to be an AB/SK border show but Calgary got their taste of Mother Nature’s Stampede early in the afternoon when a cell blew up in the foothills southwest of Cochrane and crashed out on Calgary, golfballing a good portion of the city, without warning. Lots of busted windows and dented cars around the University of Calgary.
A fantastic looking storm near Strathmore had a tornado warning issued on shortly afterward, haven’t heard of any tornadoes though. More tornado watches as that mess tracked off toward Coronation and I lost interest. Then came the rain and wind, starting off with a 95kmh gust and sideways sheets of rain.
We had 35mm already in the can when a rainfall warning was issued covering most of central Alberta for 50-70mm to come, as of 7pm it’s still going and we have 106mm(4in.) in the gauge.
July 12 RADAR Loop(1.5mb)

July 7 – Mosquitoville

Pat Boomer — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 06:26:37 +0000

Not a lot of excitement since the last post, unless you are trying to get something done outside in the yard, then the excitement level increases as hordes of bloodthirsty little beasties waft up from the grass and start mass swarming your ears. The mozzies are ridiculous around here.
The weather has been perfect for them to continue to multiply, showers in the area almost daily, moist mornings, and no big heat.
We have gained ~35mm of precip since last post, most of it in rain with a half dozen shots of hail. Nothing larger than a dime, yet. Warmer temps the next two days may bring us something bigger.
Evapotranspiration has to be at or close to maximum right about now, crops are deep green, the duck ponds have been restored and are completely lush, canola is starting to bloom. Pools of water are still laying around in the fields from our “big” rain a month ago. This is as juicy as it gets around here.