Alberta Storm Chasing

Well their you have it! Snow has returned to the province once again. Last week the models had hinted that a fair amount of precipitation would enter the province on Friday June 5, 2009 and with it brought a chance of snow. A cold front sweeping in from the north would be over taken by a moisture laden system pushing in from Montana and with the temperatures on Saturday morning hovering around 0 C, there was a good chance Calgary would see some of the snow. On Friday the rain started quite early in the morning and lasted most of the day. This was great to see as the past weeks had little to no precipitation leaving the grass yellowish and brittle. Finally planted the flowers last week and the soil in the garden was so dry it was like braking into concrete. Needless to say the moisture was welcome, even if there was a chance of snow. Also on Friday morning EC issued "Snowfall Warnings" for the Crowsnest Pass and Cypress Hills Provincal Park Areas where 15-25 cm were expected.At around 5:00 pm I took a look outside and saw that the rain had turned to a rain/snow mix but was melting on contact as the air temperature was still in the low pluses. Around that time EC had confirmed the snow in the Calgary area and predicted about 2-5 cm of snow overnight. Waking up on Saturday you could see that there was snow on the roofs and cars around the neighbourhood and there was even a light dusting in the shady spots. The Cypress Hills area definitely took the brunt of the storm. Snowfall amounts of +30 cm were reported throughout the park and most of the SE corner of the province.

Saturday brought some convection to the area with lots of rain and graupel falling within the city limits. Didn't hear any thunder or see any lightning but the lightning detector was picking up strokes north of the city.

The temperature is on the rise for most of the week and we will return to 20 C weather by the weekend. I finally got called back to work an start on Wednesday which is great for the bank account but hard on the storm chasing. I did catch my best storm SW of Brooks, AB last year in June and I was working but got rain out.

Hopefully I'll get some chases in this year too. Looks like the chance of some storms on Saturday so hopefully it will stay that way. But who knows what the weather will do next here in Alberta.