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Warm Weather and Possible T-storms

Posted at 12:37 PM on May 22, 2009

Well it looks as though we are in for some spring weather for the next week. Temperatures look to be in the high teens to low 20's for the next seven days with the exception of Sunday which looks to be cloudy/rainy with a high of 16 C. The days have been warmer but the nights are still quite cold. For the past three nights EC has issued Frost Warnings for most of Southern Alberta. We have even seen some records broken in SC Alberta. Below are a list of lastnights record lows:

Friday 22 May 2009.

Summary of severe weather events and forecasts from 8.00 AM MDT

Wednesday to 8.00 AM MDT Thursday.

A cold airmass remained over Alberta this morning bringing record

Low temperatures.

Unofficial records are as follows:

Location new record min old record min year of prev record

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Coronation -7.4 ------ -2.3 2001

Drumheller -2.3 ------ -1.7 1959

Edmonton intl arpt -6.1 ------ -3.1 1992

Ft McMurray arpt -5.2 ------ -4.4 1949

High Level arpt -3.9 ------- -3.0 2002

Red Deer arpt -5.3 ------- -3.9 1911

Slave Lake arpt -3.8 ------ -2.9 1992

Location tied record min year of prev record

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Lloydminster -4.0 1992

Now this year our spring has been quite uneventful with only a few cracks of thunder here and there. The last week of May last year saw a few thunderstorms roll through Calgary, so hopefully we'll see some action this week. Most of the real action should start in June and hopefully we'll see Alberta's first Watch or Warning go up early next month. I did find some interesting findings when I looked a GFS today which looks promising for some thunder for Sunday. Below are 1) CAPE for Sunday and 2) the precipitaion chart.

1) 2)

So hopefully we'll see some flashes and hear some rumbles. I wil likely go chasing this day just for the plan fact that I am very excited for the season to start and I don't care if they end up being rain showers! No storms in Canada and none for a week in the States is taking its toll on me. I need a fix of some sorts!!!!!

Categories: May 2009

2 Comments

Reply Brandon

12:46 PM on May 23, 2009

It's hard to say what it going to happen up here this summer. I still think we need more precipitation to aid in moisture. We'll most likely have to rely on envirotranspiration from crops for a source of moisture, but a week long rain would be nice! But seeing how far north the Jet is this time of year is encouraging.

Reply Matt Johnson

01:32 PM on May 23, 2009

Yeah i hear ya. I thought with all the snow we got this year that maybe we'd be ok but it's been so dry. Little convection gets going but all you see is virga and nothing wants to hit the ground. You guys must be reall dry up there with the fires south of Edmonton earlier in the month. We had a few here but not like up there.

I hope there is still a thunderstorm season this year!!

Brandon says...
It's hard to say what it going to happen up here this summer. I still think we need more precipitation to aid in moisture. We'll most likely have to rely on envirotranspiration from crops for a source of moisture, but a week long rain would be nice! But seeing how far north the Jet is this time of year is encouraging.