Author Archives: Mike R

A major blizzard, the first of the year, is already bringing heavy snow to parts of Alberta. The snow will only get heavier and by tomorrow morning the winds will be 37-52km/h gusting to 80 over a wide swath of central and southern Alberta. While the blizzard warning does not extend to the Edmonton area that does not mean Edmonton won’t get a blizzard. Winds in Edmonton could be in the 35-45km/h range and blizzard conditions WILL be present in open ares in the Edmonton area! The highest winds will be in the vast exposed grasslands of Southern Alberta. Snowfall totals in Edmonton are iffy as the areas is on the edge of the heaviest bands of snow.

East of Edmonton should expect 10-15cm with 15-25cm in the city itself. Areas south of Edmonton and down to Calgary and Medicine hat could see up to 30cm+.

Today started out with a severe thunderstorm that moved into the Capital region around 6am, a rare storm only striking in the early morning at best one per year. More storms are firing up and moving east through the afternoon. AlbertaWX chasers Ryan Keller and Mike Rurak will be on these storms in the Red Deer area.

The conditions are prime for suypercells as illistrated by this morning’s epic shelf cloud as it was seen from the Wetaskiwin areas

Heavily sheared shelf moving southeast toward Wetaskiwin at 6:30AM July 22nd

AlbertaWX was out for day 2 of a severe weather outbreak. More supercells with a bigger punch formed up over the northern foothills and made an erratic path southeastward. The first one started near Drayton Valley with more behind it. The easternmost cell turned 90 degrees south from Breton to Rimbey only to turn east again towards areas north of Lacombe, I topped up on gas in Lacombe when the storm took another 90 degrees turn south, pummeling Lacombe and then Red Deer. It was easier to enjoy the 2nd storm as it did not carry the huge hail or the erratic path though the now nocturnal show was just a continuous flashing and no real CGs to speak of. Overall more great structure, and incredible footage of a hail core at night. A tree snapped by the winds, hail splashing down on puddles, and cars getting dented just some of the action in yesterdays chase video.

It would have been nice if the storms fired up earlier instead at dusk as chasing after these cells was not the best idea in the darkness of night. Some good CGs would have been nice as well.

More severe setups are in the offing, Monday(July 22nd), and Wednesday(July 24th) just the first two. The weekend looks ripe once again with supercells, Dewpoints could rise into the 20Cs as well.