Alberta Foothills Weather

After getting a nice warm day off yesterday from rain and storms, today things got off to a early start and by 2pm, thunderstorms were rolling out of the foothills all the way from Drayton Valley to High River.
I went out west a few miles to meet the eastward advancing line and was treated to the first nice turquoise storm I’ve seen in a few years. Was able to watch it for almost a half hour just north of Spruceview and the show was scud-tastic. Lots of little spinny patches everywhere and scuds rising out of the mist. Before it got to Markerville it had started to gust out and there was some serious cold air pouring out of it along with heavy rain, and I bet some hail to the north a bit. By the time it got to Red Deer it was packing even more winds with 104km/h reported. 7mm of rain in 20 minutes here.

With nothing much happening around here this afternoon, we headed off to check out the local rivers and see what was up before levels start dropping again. Lots of trees floating down them, but nothing terribly exciting after seeing the carnage of 2005. The floodgates are wide open at Dickson Dam, everything going into Gleniffier Lake is pouring out, and the levels downstream near Innisfail were up quite a bit today. The only excitement at the Little Red Deer river on Cottonwood road was a big tree floating past with some half-burnt campfire logs that may have come all the way from Water Valley. We trundled out to the Garrington bridge between Sundre and Gleniffer, the river is certainly full and moving fast, but again, compared to 2005, it’s nowhere close. Next stop was James River bridge, where the James River was moving right along but looked like the peak had passed already and the bridge was still there. On to the Raven River at Raven which had spilled over into some low lying farmland north of town, but was still well within it’s banks everywhere else we could see it. Another day of rain and we may have had some problems.

While on our little tour, a line of low precip storms formed up for us to watch between stops. Just a few degrees warmer and we may have had something nice cook up, but the lighting and structure made up for it.

To mark the 1st anniversary of the blog, I thought an update was in order. It’s a work in progress and is making me learn more than I wanted to, but hopefully will be tuned up in a few days. Any comments or suggestions are appreciated.

A year ago today we got our first good storms of the season. Today, while a lot of other spots in Alberta got their first good storms of 2008, we were stuck at 10C in the wraparound rain belt with clouds scraping across the ground from the east, leaving another 30mm of rain.
Tornado watches went out this afternoon for a good chunk of central and southern Alberta, then at 5:50 a tornado was reported on the ground west of Edmonton near Seba beach. Warnings were issued but nothing else came of it. I’ve had no time to look at the forecast models, but Envirocan’s Red Deer page has the lightning bolt up again and a forecast high of 16 for tomorrow.

All this rain is starting to pile up, and Alberta Environment has now issued a flood watch for the Little Red Deer river to go along with high streamflow advisories on the Red Deer river west of Gleniffer Lake, and the Bow, Elbow, Highwood and Sheep Rivers to the south.

10 days, 5200 miles, and 7 states. Local storm chaser Brandon Brown has just returned for a week long tour with the College of Dupage storm chasing program and sent these beautiful shots over to remind us of what is on the way.

Nice day for watching cumulus eruptus today.
A low pushing in through southern BC lit up the cauliflower towers early this morning all the way from Lethbridge to about here, then off towards Rocky Mountain House. Almost everything worth looking at in Alberta today was within view. I didn’t see anything go over 30,000 feet, but a few cells did manage to produce some interesting features though the day. Lots of little dangly bits everywhere but no funnels that I could see. There was one interesting lowering south of Sylvan Lake around 6pm that got me out for a look, then a nice roll cloud around 8pm that I arrived about 5 minutes late for. Didn’t see any lightning all day which was somewhat surprising, we had a few good downpours adding up to about 17mm, bringing us close to 50mm since Friday.
More of that on the way for the next few days… it’s going to be real soggy around here and our road already looks like a mud bog track.

5:30am arrived with a bang and two freaked dogs on the bed.
Moments after hitting the publish button on the last post, the rain started here and by sunrise had brewed into a little thunderstorm that was gone by 8. The rest of the day was spent under a low gray deck again. Mid-afternoon a squall-line/front looked to be pushing west all the way from Strathmore to Stettler, so I went east of Innisfail a bit to meet it in case there was a nice shelf or something interesting. By the time I got there it was already melting and there wasn’t much left of it but the rain by the time it got here. Christian in Airdrie caught the front in the 1st photo below as it was approaching around 3:30pm. The second shot is of the leftovers as it arrived at Innisfail near 6pm. 20mm of rain today.

Another nasty cell boiled up north of Stettler this afternoon, covering the ground east of Donalda with golf ball sized hail then sitting over the Rosalind area east of hwy 850 for a number of hours dropping large hail and heavy rain. Around 7pm it slowly started to move off to the northwest, taking over an hour to pass directly over Camrose, still dispensing large hail and heavy rain. Haven’t seen any photos on the news yet, but a pair of chasers from ExtremeWx in Edmonton took a run down to check it out and will have some pics up soon.

Since the last post, we have had three drops of rain and one rumble of thunder off in the distance.
Not so for the rest of the province. Just about everyone else in Alberta has has a thunderstorm or two pass over this week, with some good ones out in the Drayton Valley-Whitecourt area yesterday.
A strange week of basically sitting in the doldrums with no real flow. Weak flow moved in from the west for the first few days but was blown away by a rude southwest surface flow, pinning everything against the mountains. Then a few day of complete disorganization, with storms forming at random all over the place from sunny spots and outflow boundaries of other dying storms.
Today was another strange one. Look to the south and everything was speeding east, look north and it was all speeding west, with us in the middle under a low gray deck and a cold(10C) west wind.

Around 6pm, a storm brewed up near Stettler, moving northwest. At 7:04pm the warnings started coming out:

WWCN16 CWWG 070104
SEVERE WEATHER BULLETIN
ISSUED BY ENVIRONMENT CANADA
AT 7:04 PM MDT FRIDAY 6 JUNE 2008.
———————————————————————
WATCHES/WARNINGS IN EFFECT FOR NORTHERN ALBERTA…

TORNADO WARNING FOR:
=NEW= CAMROSE COUNTY NEAR BAWLF AND ROSALIND.

SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS HAVE DEVELOPED RAPIDLY NEAR STETTLER AND ARE HEADING WEST NORTHWEST AT 15 KM/H. THERE WERE REPORTS OF TORNADO TOUNCHED DOWN 5 MILES EAST OF HEISLER BETWEEN HIGHWAY 854 AND 856. THIS TORNADO IS HEADING EAST NORTHEAST AT 15 KM/H.

Over the next hour, lots of severe thunderstorm warnings west of Edmonton and tornado watches all the way down to Innisfail. By 9:15 it was all over. All the watches/warnings are condensed into a text file here.
GlobalTv Edmonton ran some footage of what appeared to be a landspout kicking up some dirt in a field with a thin rope extending up into the clouds, and an interview with a farmer who had the twister tear up a corral.
Here’s a radar image from minutes before the warning and a few screen caps from tonight’s news footage of the spinup.

Thinking that something might boil up and roll out of the foothills this afternoon, we were out in Sundre by 2, wandering around between there and Rocky Mountain house. A few good sized cells did manage to fire up but sat way out in the sticks and refused to move east. We hung around south of Rocky waiting for one to move out, enjoying the occasional zot of lightning until 5 or so, then we threw up our hands and headed home. On the way back another cell formed just east of Sundre and slowly moved north, arriving here with a few bolts and rumbles around 8pm, then a nice soaking rain.
Didn’t have a chance to look at any models for tomorrow but EC has the lightning bolt up and saying 16c.

Two more fine days to end May.
After a quiet day yesterday and an almost hot afternoon today, things began to brew in the foothills late afternoon and by 6 a few nice cells were heading east. A severe thunderstorm warning went out for the Airdrie/Crossfield area on a cell that was dropping nickel sized hail(pics 1&3) and ended a few hours later without much ado. Just about everything I saw today had a high base to it, again if there was a base at all, and cells were quick to fall out soon after sprouting.
Perhaps some better stuff tomorrow.
I only had time for a quick peek at the WRF model and it is suggesting better shear, with a southeasterly upslope surface flow,west or southwest upper flow, and more juice in the mix right around here. Would be nice to sit out on the deck and celebrate the arrival of June with a supercell or two.

After two days of stiff and cool southeast wind, today was a stunner, with a light breeze from the west and 25C.
Towers began to rise in the west before noon, and by 2pm we had a little thundershower pass over. Nothing could get going very good today, everything around here was quite high based, if there even was a base. Lots of virga, a sprinkle here and there. A few puffed up a bit better closer to 6pm, and one west of Innisfail even looked like it picked up some spin as it crossed an outflow boundary moving SW, but nothing got much above 30k feet all day and by 9pm the skies were clear.

A brief look at the models suggested more of the same for tomorrow and Saturday, Sunday looks more interesting so far. Southwest upper flow and southeast surface winds with some better moisture all around. We shall see…

Not a very nice weekend around these parts, cloudy and cold but a lot less wet than down south. We only gained another 4mm, bringing the event total to 38mm(1.5″).

Flood watches went out Sunday for a number of southern foothills rivers, but nothing much came of it and after a quick peak, levels are on the decrease, as shown by these graphs from EnviroCan’s Real time hydrometric data site.

The forecast is for a gradual warmup over the next few days, back up to 20 by Wednesday. Westerly flow returns and some instability shows in the models for late Wednesday and Thursday, but the best chance for a storm seems to be in the Swan hills to Drayton Valley area. Would be nice if a sparker or two could roll off the foothills down here and get June off to a good start like they got in Manitoba last night.
A small supercell tracked east for few hours last night across extreme southern Manitoba and the first canuck tornado touchdown of the year was reported around 4:30pm by RCMP south of Morris. Also a report of an evening touchdown 10km NE of Gretna.

The ISS is back in view over Alberta until June 2nd-ish. Tomorrow night (Tuesday) it makes a 80°, almost directly overhead pass, rising at 10:49 almost due west, setting at 10:58 almost due east.