July 12/2009 Forecast

Severe storms are possible today off the foothills in Alberta. Nice cape values in the order of 2500-3000j/kg, dews in the mid 60F range, southerly 850's, southerly surface winds and a lee side trough to get things going. A downfall is that H5 and H7 winds are not very great. Conditions may be conducive for HP development with the lack of good flow. Although dangerous, they can be quite photogenic! The best area seems to be near Drayton Valley north to the Yellowhead area where the best instability and moisture is forecast. The southerly 850's lie a bit further east, so hopefully if a storm does fire it can sustain itself to reach those winds. I may head to southeastern Alberta and maybe into southwestern Sask tomorrow as it looks like thunderstorm conditions will be there. Time will tell...

July 4/2009 Unconfirmed Tornado/Funnel

A lee side trough set the stage for a typical round of Alberta foothills thunderstorms today. Good flow aloft got them off the hills and moving east onto the prairies. Fallon and I targeted a isolated severe warned cell in the foothills northwest of Rocky Mountain House after almost heading south to get to the storms south of Olds on the QE2. After letting the storm core us northwest of Sylvan Lake, we follwed the backside of it east along the Aspelund road and stopped as we noticed funnels starting to spin. The first 4 photo's are of what I think is a brief rope like tornado that was west-north-west of Blackfalds, and the 5th photo is the funnel that everyone and thier dog observed in Red Deer. Decent southerly 850's were forecasted at 0z east of the foothills tonight, so I suspect once the storm reached those winds it gave it a little spin. Not supercellular, but either way they were fun to photograph! My holidays start soon, and I hope to photograph and document at least one stacked plated supercell.

Badlands Photo's

Fallon and I had a great day together hanging out at the Dry Island Buffalo Jump National Park badlands today. We did a little fishing on the banks of the Red Deer river and reeled in some Goldeye's and did some quick photo taking as well. NO signs of storms around this dry as a bone province any time soon, so I'm staying patient and waiting for my holidays to start on July 10th. Most likely going to put some kilometers on and head east into the juicy air and where the southerly 850's lie. Maybe a trip into North Dakota or Montana, only time will tell. July only comes once a year, so I might as well try to make the best of it.

Another classic Alberta shelf...

Went out and photographed a classic Alberta Shelf cloud on Monday evening. It showed some pretty structure, and dumped a pile of well needed rain around the area. I let the core blast me just north of Sylvan Lake and found no hail in my location. I'm glad the season has started, but I hope to see more Supercell's this summer instead of the shelfy, outflow stuff like this we seem to get alot of. I bracketed these shots and thought the slightly underexposed ones looked the best.

2 Years ago today...

2 years ago today I photographed this beauty as it came to the southwest outskirts of Red Deer. It came off the foothills northwest of Rocky Mountain House if I remember correctly, and pummeled Rocky with golfball sized hail. Sorry for the noisy image, it was shot with a very old school digital camera. Another image that I wish I shot with the camera gear I have now. I'm hoping to see ANY storm soon, as we've been in some cool arctic air recently. Maybe a chance on Saturday? Decent instability is forecasted with ok moisture up at 850mb and little bullseye on the surface, but theres no flow aloft and were under a ridge as I type this. H7 temps are at 4C at 0z which is breakable and there is a surface low up on the northern AB and BC border which hopefully drops a trough along the foothills for some lift. Surface flow is out of the southwest and weak, but maybe some upslope there for lift as well. The GFS breaks out precip along the southwestern foothills, so I guess we'll see as Saturday comes near. If a storm pops, it'll likely just sit there on the foothills. Who knows, it'll probably end up snowing.