With the early arrival of a weak cold front at around 9am I figured the chance of severe thunderstorms dissipated, it turns out the “cold front” was just a messenger. The real cold front turned up after supper and tore the CAP open leading to flash convection(some storms formed in a single 10min radar frame).
The first round of storms roared out of the foothills and make parts of the Leduc area look like winter, the same system moved east at a rapid pace making for a tough chase.
The 2nd round was by far the scariest, though I ended up missing it due to “core punch avoidance”. Had i gone after it I would have been cored near Ponoka as the storm passed over #2 and #2A, windshield preservation is top priority. I chose to use #21 to get south of it but at it’s fast pace I ended up using #56 and getting gas in Camrose. Most of the time i was dealing with heavy rain and heavy traffic from the big valley jamboree making for some of the worst driving conditions I’ve been through in a while.
Once on #56 I went for it, by now the supercell had long ago turned into a squall line that extended to Wetaskiwin(literally formed right on top of it) and speed up even more. I eventually ended up getting cored by the line near Edberg only getting very heavy rain. Once it had passed I made a few attempts to catch up and called it a night after the storm passed HWY 36. Meanwhile I was treated to quite the light show, the lightning was not only frequent but very bright and even when I got back to Wetaskiwin the lightning was still lighting up the sky from 100km away.
AlbertaWX - Central Alberta Storm Chasers 