Alberta storm chase this week

[kold weather]

Hey nice photos there Roger, those mountions on day 2 looked really stunning and also really liked the shots of the CB.

[Blackie]

Good luck Roger, have fun in my future home town of Nelson (hopefully by January)

I didn't know you were moving to Nelson, Rich. Lots of good golf courses round there, especially towards Cranbrook and Kimberley. And great skiing at Fernie and Kimberley. But will you still be doing your limo service from Calgary? Bit far I would have thought.

Great accounts Roger, and some lovely photos too. Look forward to reading how you got on yesterday.

[Coopsy]

I didn't know you were moving to Nelson, Rich. Lots of good golf courses round there, especially towards Cranbrook and Kimberley. And great skiing at Fernie and Kimberley. But will you still be doing your limo service from Calgary? Bit far I would have thought.

Great accounts Roger, and some lovely photos too. Look forward to reading how you got on yesterday.

I've just sent you a message..explains it all

[Roger J Smith]

Days 4 & 5 -- safely home

Just arrived back in Vancouver at 7 pm Friday.

On Thursday we determined there would be no active weather in southern Alberta so we took some interesting cloud pictures and a movie in the Crowsnest Pass area in the southern border of Alberta and BC. Heading further west, we could see a number of decent CBs over the Purcell Mountains northwest of Kimberley but access to that area was not possible, so we continued west through Creston to an eventual camping stop at Christina Lake. Front was hanging just to our north through the night, without much development, and clear skies overhead gave us a very nice view of the first of the Perseids, about four fireballs in fifteen minutes (so the peak in 48 hours might be quite promising).

Today (Friday, that is) we drove at a rather leisurely pace through the southern Okanagan, stopping in to tour the Sonoran desert ecosystem which is represented on a small section of the valley near Osoyoos. Before reaching that spot we drove through the remnants of the front which was starting to develop a little, near Grand Forks, and got some pictures of that. Will post these later pictures over the weekend, nothing too spectacular.

Have just looked at weather data over the region we left, the cells that we drove through on Friday morning developed quite significantly around Cranbrook in southeast BC and gave them a gusty hailstorm at 2 pm. Temperatures there dropped from 20 to 11 in one hour (our temps throughout these two days have been moderately warm thanks to being on the warm side of the front, while Calgary and other places to our north shivered through 12-14 C, we had 22-27 C by day and 12-14 C at night.)

More significantly, a cell developed over Montana from a frontal wave that appeared to start its existence this morning well to the south of our location in eastern WA state. This cell has apparently been near-tornadic with wind gusts at Medicine Hat to about 100 km/hr and reports of roof damage. Too bad we couldn't stay in Alberta long enough to have any chance at this one, but still, on the whole we were happy with the trip and the experience, and as I said we had other commitments here on Saturday so that would have been too far to drive in one night, or even 24 straight hours which is not that nice a thing after a storm chase.

This tornadic storm is now bearing down on parts of southern SK so there may be more news about it to follow, although the dynamics look to be rapidly transferring south into ND.

Sounds like Rich met a girl in Nelson, he said knowing the town quite well.

[Blackie]

Great pictures, Roger, although I couldn't see the bear in the tree. If you lighten it a little it may show up.

I love the last shot of the horses in the desert at Osoyoos. It's amazing to think that Canada has a desert! But it is the most northerly section of the Sonoran Desert. Makes a good pub quiz question!!

Well done on your chase. You must be knackered after all that driving, and in such a short time. You covered a hell of a lot of ground in a few days. How many miles did you drive in total?

[Thundersquall]

Roger,

Some of those storms look like those you'd expect to see in the Mid-West USA,

not this far north in Canada. Were there tornadoes mixed in with these?

Cheers, TS.

[Roger J Smith]

We drove about 1600 miles in total, but I drive regularly as part of my pay-the-bills job, and it has never been much of an issue on my vacations to drive 300-450 miles a day although not every day of course.

Not much traffic except going through Calgary and upon our return to Vancouver, so the miles go by fairly easily.

As for the question about tornadoes, the storms that we intercepted on Tuesday and Wednesday were probably about as severe as anyone in the region experienced, so no, tornadic activity did not develop, however on the Wednesday the media were reporting some minor funnel cloud touchdowns around Calgary, these were probably very weak in terms of damage potential.

The storm that developed after we left the region on Friday was being described as near-tornadic with roof damage, I think from radar animation it was a downburst type windstorm rather than a tornado but that may be revised when I hear more about it. These strong prairie downburst storms can develop 120-150 km/hr gusts and F1-2 type damage in any case.

We both enjoyed the storm chase a lot, and would like to try another one somewhere in North America in the near future. After this experience, though, I would be very hesitant to get too close to a real tornadic cell, even with something like the Baron technology on board, I've seen enough of these storms in a lifetime to realize that they eddy around and are very capable of redeveloping right over your head without much warning even when you think they are off to your north or south by some specified safety margin. And that means it would not be too difficult for a storm like the Greensburg monster to sweep up a storm chaser without much warning -- then you'd be in deep **** for sure.

[stormchaser1]

Morning Roger

Excellent Pictures and accoun of Events, thanks for sharing ,

Nigel

[Roger J Smith]

SOME ADDITIONAL PICTURES

(re-edited)

___________________________________

Good news, I figured out how to place my pictures where the text suggests they should be (doh) ... Now if I can just figure out how to predict the CET, I'll have nothing left to do.

First of all, here's that bear in a tree on the first evening of our trip.

Second picture, a view of the Tuesday storm near Drumheller in an early phase of development, with shafts of sunlight breaking through, but signs of the rain shaft starting to appear also.

Next, some additional badlands photography.

This picture, another dramatic view of the Champion (Alberta) hailstorm cell.

Following image, looking west away from the hailstorm, looking for ET.

In this image, weird and wonderful cloud shapes in the aftermath of the hailstorm, taken about an hour later and 50 kms southwest.

Taken on Thursday near Pincher Creek, in southern Alberta, cumulus flowing over the Rockies in a 40 knot WSW flow, undergoing violent uplift as they slam into a dry wedge at surface to about 6,000 ft where winds are ESE 20 knots on average.

In this view looking north in the Crowsnest Pass on the Alberta-BC border, typical cloud formations that can quickly develop into CBs when they reach southern Alberta, if any kind of trigger or further uplift is present.

This weak cell at 0900h PDT on Friday Aug 10, near Grand Forks in south central BC, will later develop into a fairly severe hailstorm for the Cranbrook area in southeast BC.

Final image, a small area of Sonoran desert in the Okanagan valley near the border with Washington state, in the hot dry climate around Osoyoos BC, and kids on horseback enjoying a relatively cool August day, 25 C.

____________________________________________

Many thanks to my wife Sheila for her help with the photography (we shared this task about equally on the trip) and also with the internet hookups on the road -- and for some great cloud reporting on the passenger side of the van during the chase.

Edited August 21, 2007 by Roger J Smith

[androcles]

RJ

You live in a stunningly beautiful part of the world.

Great pix.

Thanks