AlbertaWX – Central Alberta Storm Chasers

Confidence is shaky with the upcoming season as we are entering the season with extremely dry conditions in the main storm forming regions along the foothills. Isolated heavy snowfall events have kept up moisture levels the Edmonton area and some nearby areas to the north-east, east, and south-east. It won’t come even close tot he normal for May unless a decent rain event comes(models are not showing that consistently at all) with some indicating we won’t see a drop until the middle of June. the 12z GFS was showing temperatures as high as 35C+ at the surface near the end of the month, with the low amount of soil moisture it won’t come as a surprise.

Thunderstorm activity will be effected by three things this year.

Blocking system that could bring in copious amounts of gulf moisture or desert heat into Alberta.

Mean Jet over northern Alberta and NWT will boost storm activity along the yellowhead highway and north which may see the return of 2006-2008 levels of activity to Edmonton while southern Alberta sees much lower thunderstorm activity.

Developing drought conditions will result in low local moisture for transpiration and evaporation. LP supercells likely to be the hallmark of 2015.

Here is a forecast map for thunderstorm anomalies over the 2015 storm season.

And here is where the month of May stands out at this point(half obs, and half forecast)

It’s May but winter just loves to ruin the party. 15cm+ has already fallen is pockets and the intense snow band is still stalled over Edmonton.

This is nearly the same kind of system that dumped 30-40cm on Wetaskiwin a week ago. It remains uncertain whether the same amounts will pile up in the Edmonton area.

Many trees are already in leaf due to the warm spring so damage can be expected.

Just like with the Apr 25th snowstorm the hardest hit areas are localised and will be followed by a warmup. GFS, CFS and GEM are consistent with temperatures in the mid to high 20s through next week.

Stay tuned for updates on accumulations and damage reports

A intense and compact storm had dumped upwards of 40cm+ on areas to the south of Edmonton while leaving the city itself completely free of snow.

Currently an area of heavy snow has stalled over the area, if it lasts into the evening it May be possible to see totals in excess of 50cm locally. There has never been a snowstorm in this area to drop more than 50cm in 24 hours. The only reason we may not see this in the record books is the fact the area does not have a long running record of snowfall acumulations.

Wetaskiwin measured at 37cm as of noon. This shattered the all time 24 hour snowfall record of 31cm set on Apr 27 1988.

All time records in nearby areas are in the 30-40cm range so This is the most snow these areas have ever had dumped on them. Ever!

To make matters worse the record shattering snow dump is expected to completely melt in ~24 hours and major flooding is a real possibility.