Alberta Foothills Weather

I’ve been kicking around the thought of posting some sort of wrap-up for year’s end for a few weeks, yesterday the quest to find the favorite photos of 2011 began. We tried to find one for each month, but photo ops seemed to clump together more this year than in years past. Long stretches of nothingness in the depth of the cruel winter we had, a big burst of activity in July then another drought in the dry, dusty fall A few December tours have resulted in absolutely zilch, no animals, no frost, no snowdrifts, no optic marvels of any kind.

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.

The last total eclipse until April 2014 was a bit of a disappointment, all my own fault. Too much satellite watching, not enough “get atter”.
A lee trough was already building along the foothills at nap time, it looked like there may be some high cloud on the other side of the mountains and the chance of some light wave cloud along the hills on this side for the morning.
A few hours later at getup time the IR was showing even more waving along the hills but a break west of here.
We decided to try and find something local for a backdrop for a few shots but came up completely blank and wound up stopping in a few random places just to get a tele shot. Mid eclipse the moon started to fade behind a invisible sheath of high cloud far to the northwest. Got to watch the rest of it on the Calgary news, they had a clear view of the whole thing.
I think I’ll start planning now for the upcoming ‘tetrad’, four total eclipses in a row, in just two years.
April 15, 2014 – October 8, 2014 – April 4, 2015 – September 28, 2015

Nothing much to complain about for the first week of December.
A bit of snow, a shot of cold, a few shots of warm. Not bad.
Still nothing scary showing on the long range forecast, which is starting to reach into the holidays already.

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 one thing I dislike more than bitter cold is endless wind.
November 2011 goes into my books as a writeoff. Drab skies, dreary scenery, cold and windy.
Until last night, we have only had a few skiffs of snow, just enough to snot up the roads but not enough to cover the brown, dusty landscape.
The month has seen a train of stout lows crashing the Alaska and BC coast, dropping lots of snow in the Rockies and building chinooks of wildly varying strength along the Alberta foothills.

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….

I finally got a chance to absorb some of the fantastic fall color of southwestern Ontario on a trip to visit family in Woodstock. Too bad the weather would not cooperate.
5 minutes of sun in 5 days put the boots to any good photo ops, but the prospect of catching a few morning rays on the amazing bouquet of color in Oxford county had me out trolling every day before sunup, waiting for it.
The wind and grey skies didn’t hinder the sightseeing, a trip to Niagara Falls, a stop at the locks on the Welland Canal, and many miles crawling along muddy back roads lined with gorgeous old farms. Instead of barley beards and canola as far as the eye can see, the countryside is dominated by corn, soybeans, ginseng and tobacco. And trees, lots of trees everywhere, in large woodlots full of wildlife and fall color.
I could have spent weeks just driving around looking at the farmland, it really is a beautiful area. Woodstock itself is an amazing place to look around, I spent quite a few hours cruising the backstreets past beautifully preserved old houses and giant old churches on every third corner.
Not a lot of photos were taken, what did rate a click was usually a quick snap in the rain and a few were through the windshield. Might have to try again next October.