Prairie Storm Tranquillity

January 17/2012 Update...

2012-01-17T23:01:00.003-07:00

I have a new, updated blog created. Thanks to everyone who follows this blog and has commented over the years. Please feel free to continue following at:

http://prairiestormtranquillity.wordpress.com/

Thanks!

Brandon

November 26/2011 Check-In

2011-11-26T14:07:00.005-07:00

Here is another image of the August 13/2011 Supercell coming off of the foothills south-southwest of Drayton Valley and a radar scan of the storm close to the same time. After being out of the country and missing the HUGE July 7th day, I was relieved to be able to observe a decent storm before the storm season came to a close. I've been out with my camera since then and have posted a few photos from those outings on my website and new Flickr page. I won't be able to get out as much next summer to see storms but I will have my traditional 7 to 10 days of work holidays to choose from in July to observe and photograph a few storms.
http://brandonbrownimagery.smugmug.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brandonbrownimagery/

August 13/2011 Drayton Valley area Supercell

2011-08-18T21:50:00.006-06:00

Gotta love some Drayton Valley magic. This area likes to create some great storms. My initial target on August 13th was Rimbey. I wanted to play the Rocky Mountian House-Drayton Valley corridor since thats where things to me looked like they might happen, so choosing Rimbey for a target meant that I was kind of in between the two. There was a cap south of this area and this is where the edge of the ridge was. Good mid level flow was entering this area later on in the day, and temperatures and dewpoints were healthy in this region as well. (Breton had a 24/16 with ENE winds at 11k at 6:00pm) For what its worth, a morning RUC run I viewed broke out a storm in this area as well. I left mid afternoon for Rimbey but drove past there and headed north to Drayton since convection was already taking place there. A storm was west of Drayton and looked good, so I went into the sticks (first and last time doing this!) near Cynthia to see the base. Another echo/storm was forming to its south that I had my eye on since it came on radar, so after this storm near Cynthia began weakening, I immediately left for the southern storm that was roughly in the Alder Flats/Brazeau area. It seemed to be struggling for a bit with the remnants of the storm to its north still lingering, but when I got back into Drayton, it started to get its act together. I drove to the south-southwest of Drayton on Hwy 620 to just east of Violet Grove, pulled over safely and watched this supercell spin over the trees for almost an hour. What a wicked sight! As it came closer, I knew I had to leave it for a brief period to get over the North Sask River and get to and go south on Hwy 22 to get close to the base. I did just that and I was treated to some fantastic structure north of Buck Lake near Hwy 22. As it eventually crossed Hwy 22, it decided it had enough and started to weaken. Being able to watch this storm almost in its entirety definitely made my summer.
6:21pm vertical shot of the supercell taken from just east of Violet Grove, Alberta...
6:23pm horizontal shot of the supercell taken way wide at 12mm...
7:13pm photo from Hwy 22 near Buck Creek. I fought harsh highlights from the vault/precip area, but I like the yellow tinge the sun gave the side of the updraft as it shined through the precip core. A WHK radar scan showing an impressive v-notch, a 1km central Alberta visible satellite scan and a storm image all from 7:30 pm. (Storm image was actually shot at 7:29pm) It's pretty cool seeing what the storm looked like at the same time from three different types of imagery. Awesome structure as well!

I have many more photos of this storm, so perhaps one day when I am bored and I have some time, I'll post a few more. It's also worth heading over to Alberta Foothills Weather to check out an awesome time lapse from this storm as well. The link is on the right side under ''Links".

August 6/2011 Thunderstorm photos

2011-08-10T22:14:00.005-06:00

A quick post regarding the nasty storm that rolled through southwest of Red Deer last Saturday night. A cold front spawned a few severe warned thunderstorms in the foothills near Rocky Mountain House, so I drove west to meet them. I aimed at the southern storm of the line of three which took off to the southeast and met it southwest of Red Deer. Don't let the cold, outflow shelf appearance fool you because this thing packed some serious punch! A probable HP supercell, it possessed good inflow for awile and there was a nasty lowering and possible circulation underneath the gust front that had my full attention. It was probably the most ugliest storm feature I've ever seen while out observing storms. I couldn't make out any clear cut rotation, but there was some crazy motion going on in there. Heavy rainfall, quarter sized hail and wind gusts approaching 70 km/h were reported from this storm. The weekend is approaching and it looks like there may be potential for severe storms.
Panorama of the storm west of Innisfail.
Nasty green lowering/area of interest approaching my location. I did not want to mess with this, so I left in a hurry after I took this image and headed safely away from the heavy core.

August 5/2011 Calgary area Supercell and Aurora Borealis photos

2011-08-08T20:59:00.008-06:00

I finally have some time tonight to catch up and create an account for the supercell thunderstorm I observed in the Calgary area and the northern lights I observed after, on Friday, August 5th. Warm, humid conditions and southeast surface flow were present on Friday and a dryline materialized along the foothills during the afternoon. I monitored the situation closely from work and noticed convection developing north of Cochrane mid afternoon. Dews were shallow in that area so I figured that if they made it out into the juice they would intensify. I managed to leave work early and beelined it down highway 2 to reach these storms. I noted beautiful supercell structure on a storm while it was just west of highway 22 near Cremona, on a xsm scan on route while near Olds. This obviously made me excited, but once I got near the area west of Airdrie, the storm was dying! I stayed with it hoping it would rebuild, and it did. The storm became supercellular again west of Airdrie and I was able to document the storm from close range from a very decent location. The storm headed southeast into the Calgary area where I lost it in city limits in northwest Calgary trying to get around in traffic and in heavy, heavy rain. I eventually got back around in front of the storm southeast of Calgary, but by this time the updraft was decaying and becoming super elevated as it was dumping a huge amount of rain and hail in the city. I bid the storm farewell and left for Red Deer to get ready for the forecasted display of Aurora that was to take place overnight. A few solar flares, with one huge Mclass flare, had erupted from a massive sunspot a few days earlier and hurled a few coronal mass ejections towards earth. I wanted to go to the shores of Gull Lake, but I didn't like the cloud cover to the north of there since convection was taking place west of Edmonton, so I traveled east as skies were generally clear in that direction. I ended up between Red Deer and Stettler at an old abandoned barn that I found while shooting a sunrise last winter. I wanted a foreground for the aurora and I feel this barn added a great element to my photos. Overall it turned out to be a great day. It's not everyday you are able to witness a supercell and aurora on the same day!
Here is the XSM scan I noted above showing nice supercell structure complete with hook echo. Seems to me that it was seeded from the storm to its immediate southeast, which caused the storm to die.
My patience payed off by staying with the remnants as it reformed into this beauty west of Airdrie. I believe this view is from range road 14 south of highway 567 looking west. A small wall cloud can be seen underneath the updraft but I couldn't confirm that it was rotating.
Another view shortly after the photo above with the storm now developing an inflow band.
The storm now looks to be weakening with it losing its inflow band, but it still has a small wall cloud.
And here is why it started to weaken. While trying to reposition, I initially thought the storm was splitting, but looking at radar a bit later it was clear to me that it was merging with new convection that developed to its south, as seen here. It's already showing a core which is separated from the new updraft. This is looking south-southeast from range road 13 north of highway 566 looking towards northwest Calgary.
New updraft base showing some ugly (but awesome!) hues of green heading southeast towards Calgary.
I was running out of south road options as I didn't want to head into the city, so I travelled east away from the storm to try to get ahead of it southeast of the city, but had no luck. This is one last shot of the storm before I lost it showing a wall cloud in city limits of Calgary. Couldn't confirm rotation with it.
Parting shot of the storm from southeast of Calgary showing the dying storm core dumping inside the city. Golf ball sized hail and torrential rain were reported in Calgary. I was also sad to hear of a gentleman losing his life from the effects of this storm as well.

Here are a few of my Aurora photos from the recent Geomagnetic storm. These are 30 second exposures and I shined my headlamp onto the barn during the exposure to bring out some definition of the barn so It wouldn't be a boring black shape. I think they turned out well.

I'll have a post of the HP supercell that came through the area on August 6th up soon...

July 29/2011 Severe Warned Thunderstorm Photos

2011-07-30T15:33:00.005-06:00

I observed a couple of local severe warned thunderstorms yesterday. A trough came over the province and triggered numerous thunderstorms with the best ones occurring south, in the Airdrie to Drumheller area with tornado warnings issued for some, again. I observed nothing too terribly exciting with my eyes, the storms seemed outflowy in nature with no real exciting storm structure. I did see a funnel near Innisfail that lasted all but 1 minute! I should have drove to Airdrie, but how do you know? Seems Drumheller is the place to be this year. Tomorrow has potential for another round of severe thunderstorms in central Alberta with the arrival of another upper level trough. Surface temperatures are forecasted to be approaching 30C is some places. The instability is there with both the NAM and GFS showing decent CAPE values of 2000 j/kg. Shear is present with strong southwesterly flow aloft bring bulk shear values approaching 50 knots in some areas. Dewpoints are progged to be anywhere from the low to mid teens and a cold front sweeps down from the northwest providing sufficient lift. I don't like the possible fast storm speeds tomorrow, but I'll take any storm at this point! It has the makings of a good storm watching day, but not a good day for regular people enjoying the long weekend.
First severe warned thunderstorm west of Sylvan Lake. I abandoned this outflow dominant storm after a quick look for the storm you see in the distance to the left of the road. It seemed to be moving away from this storm to the southeast a bit, but on the way I ran into cold outflow from this storm which I think think that new storm ingested.
Here is a shelfy lowering of the storm I mentioned above near Markerville. I stayed with this storm hoping it would move back into cleaner air and become more organized.
I fought harsh highlights from this vantage point of this look of the storm west of Innisfail, so these top 3 photos are blended. It seemed to be getting its act together here with constant rumbings of thunder, a healthy core and better radar representation. Storm motion was fairly quick, so I basically lost position on this storm trying to flee the core of this storm.
A look at the storm from behind east of Innisfail. Thought of playing catch up, but was running low on fuel, unfortunately.
New storm development to my west was my new focus. Didn't turn out to be much, but there was nice cg lightning in the core which I tried to photograph but putting my camera on continuous mode, but gave up as a close strike to the left here made me pack up and head for the vehicle. All in all a good day for storm watching. Hopefully tomorrow will bring nice looking storm structure if it all pans out.

July 25/2011 Rocky Mountian House Thunderstorm Photos

2011-07-26T22:49:00.004-06:00

A quick post about the storm I observed near Rocky Mountain House yesterday afternoon. I had 4 days off this past weekend, and yesterday was the best day for a chance for some severe thunderstorms. It wasn't the greatest set up, but storms did initiate in the foothills mid afternoon. I kept an eye on things from home and when I noticed a tower going up in the Rocky Mountain House area, I was out the door and headed west. Flow in the mid levels was lacking yesterday, so this storm was lazy and not moving very fast at all. When I got to it south of Rocky, it was already showing signs that it wanted to weaken and it did just that. I snapped a few photos and my attention then turned to the west to another growing storm out in the sticks west of Rocky. I stopped and watched it for awhile and hoped it would hang on and come out of the bush, but it began to weaken as well, so I headed back to Red Deer for the evening. I have 5 days off starting Thursday, so I am hoping for some opportunities to see a few storms. The latest 0z GFS run has me optimistic as it looks to be bringing in flow aloft with some hints of instability over parts of central Alberta over the weekend and warm temperatures are forecasted as well.

July 19/2011 Thunderstorm Photo

2011-07-20T21:23:00.002-06:00

You have to drive to see good storms. The best storm yesterday was likely the one that formed southeast of Calgary and carried on just east of Drumheller into the Hanna region. It became tornado warned and showed supercell representation on radar, developing a noticeable hook. I considered the drive to it as it was heading east-north-east of Calgary, but its pretty tough to commit to after a day of work during the work week. Mid afternoon I was watching the storm situation unfold from work and noticed an ugly line from Olds to Red Deer develop. I met up with it after work after 4:00pm south of Penhold and only managed to snap a quick photo as it was coming in pretty quick at 60 km/h. There was some fantastic greenish hues in there from my location, and immediately assumed there had to be some large hail in it, so as soon as the outflow reached me, I raced south into Innisfail and took shelter behind a hotel wall as torrential rain and small bits of hail fell. I drove a bit further south to see the next line which developed near Cochrane, which was kind of a waste of time, as it wasn't very pretty, not showing any linear striations. I'm looking forward to the next system as tonight's 0z NAM run at 84 hrs is showing a trough on the west coast of BC that may potentially bring southwest flow over the province around Sunday/Monday.
The Niobe grain elevator north of Innisfail sits under green skies as a thunderstorm quickly approaches.

July 18/2011 Thunderstorm Panorama

2011-07-18T23:04:00.004-06:00

Nothing fancy from me tonight, since I likely missed the storm of the day tonight. Conditions were favorable for the development of severe thunderstorms over central Alberta today. I left work and headed west towards the foothills after noticing a storm near Rocky Mountain House and hoped a storm would train south of it and become isolated. A line of storms then materialized from southwest of Edmonton to northwest of Sundre, then another line from Sundre, down south to Cochrane. I am fully aware that south of a line is the place to be since a storm can break off and can become supercellular. It seemed to have occurred tonight, judging by radar, northeast of Airdrie. I was between the ''Edmonton-Rocky'' line, and ''Sundre to Cochrane'' line in sunshine at one point, and actually started to head south to try to get south of the southern line, but I turned around pretty quick after thinking that I wouldn't be able to catch up. That was the end of the night for me. I'm hoping for a few more chances for some supercells before the seasons over!
A pano of the southern portion of the ''Edmonton-Rocky'' line, near Caroline.

July 14/2011 Severe Warned Thunderstorm

2011-07-14T22:19:00.003-06:00

After work today, I met up with Pat from Alberta Foothills Weather for the possibility to observe some severe weather. We met up near Markerville and watched a few cells develop along the hills and watched them merge into a bit of a line. We liked the look of the southern storm and drove to Glennifer Lake for a closer look. We hoped this line would split up and send a storm more into isolation, but there seemed to be a lot of forcing taking place in this area which made more convection develop in the vicinity. This is probably what prevented these storms from achieving more severity. After looking at road options, I said goodbye to Pat and another watcher Matt who also pulled up at Glennifer to try to get a look at this storm from the south side. I drove through some heavy rain and some soft hail bombs and finally got to get a look of it east of Bowden, while it was weakening. I took a few photos and headed home. I just glanced at the models and it seems like another shot of SW flow aloft will be arriving in a few days. It could lead to a few fun days ahead...even though I'm watching everyday.Weakening thunderstorm that was severe warned (not sure if it was at this time) east of Bowden.
Turbulent skies over the canola filled Alberta prairie east of Bowden.

July 11/2011 Lacombe Area Storm

2011-07-11T22:43:00.003-06:00

I had a day off of work today to recover from my recent arrival from China last night (still extremely disappointed about missing the July 7th storm!) so I took the opportunity to observe a storm north of home for a few hours today. Nothing too exciting set up wise today with weak flow aloft, with a bit of instability. I wasn't sure on where to go as I decided early on I didn't want to drive south of Calgary into the more favorable area where severe watches were issued, so I chose a leisurely backyard drive to a nearly stationary storm in the Lacombe area, which ended up flooding parts of the town. I mainly stayed underneath the storm near the area of interest, where I observed a ton of scud which were almost ground scraping and some rather cool motions, including some short periods of rotation at times. I eventually got ahead of the storm a bit before it started to weaken and noted some ok structure (which looks HP in nature) and took a wide angle pano and got cored with heavy rain along the QE2 where I observed many vehicles pulled over along the shoulder. Another highlight of the day was the close barrage of cloud to ground lightning, which I failed to capture and the extremely loud thunder!
A wide angle photo (storm is very close)of the area of interest.
Wide angle panorama of the storm showing possible HP supercell characteristics.

June 21/2011 LP Supercell

2011-06-22T11:06:00.005-06:00

I was aware of the potential for severe thunderstorms yesterday and monitored the situation from work. A storm was approaching Red Deer from the west just as I was leaving work at 4:00 and stayed east of the storm and watched it fizzle away near the Joffre area. Another storm fired south of the city near Innisfail and I tried to get to it but realized that the detour around the Red Deer River would be pointless. I then could see a nice TCU developing way west of Red Deer which looked good on both satellite and radar. Visually and on radar I could tell this storm was LP in nature and was on my way to see it, although I had a 110km drive to get to it! It's too bad I wasn't in the Rocky area to begin with, instead of messing around with the convection to the east, since this storm looked amazing while on the way to meet it. I met Pat from Alberta Foothills Weather near the storm southeast of Rocky and we stopped to say hello, take a few photos and admire the sight in front of us as it slowly spun itself to death. Although I was late, I still enjoy these photos from this LP. The Alberta Foothills sure are a magical place for these types of storms! I'm hoping for another round of convection today, as some conditions are present conducive to severe thunderstorm formation.Vertical shot of the LP's base and tower. Upon arriving late, this storm couldn't hang on to give us a longer show!

Beautiful striated base floating over the countryside. These photos were taken near the intersection of TWP road 380 and Sec HWY 761 southeast of Rocky Mountain House, basically between Stauffer and Condor.

May 2/2011 Aurora Photo

2011-05-08T14:35:00.003-06:00

While monitoring potential Aurora activity throughout the weekend, Pat from Alberta Foothills Weather texted me saying he could faintly see Aurora overhead late Sunday on May 1st. I drove north to Gull Lake to get the shot I want of the Aurora over the lake, but could only see a faint Aurora haze to the north. I waited for an hour and decided to head home around Midnight since I had to work in the morning. As soon as I layed down in bed, Pat sent me another text saying they finally came out, so I looked out the window to see they were dancing away. I packed up again and this time stayed close to Red Deer and found this view looking north on a range road just to the northwest of the city. I believe the orange glow to the right is light pollution from Lacombe. A long exposure was needed to bring out the color since they weren't that vivid and I bumped up the shadows a bit to show some foreground interest. I am looking forward to the next display. Thanks again Pat.

April 12/2011 Aurora Photo

2011-04-12T06:23:00.002-06:00

I received a phone call from spaceweather.com alerting me of potential aurora activity at 3:30 this morning, so I looked out the bedroom window to the north and there they were. I quickly grabbed my gear and headed north out of the city and found this view along a range road facing north, roughly 25 kilometers northwest of Red Deer. They put on a good show for about an hour with the occasional blues and purples coming out, and the motions were incredible! Here is a quick photo:

April 6/2011 New Website

2011-04-06T21:54:00.003-06:00

I have a new website where I have some of my photos displayed. Feel free to check it out...!

http://brandonbrownimagery.smugmug.com/

March 13/2011 Update

2011-03-13T09:54:00.005-06:00

I am in the final stages of creating a proper website to display my photographs (with hopes to sell a print or two!) but will keep this blog to mainly showcase my storm chasing accounts. I might post an image here or there as well. Storm season is still a few months away but I'm looking forward to this season since I have a new job with hours that will allow me to spend more time out with storms. Thanks for looking, if anyone is...!
Supercell Thunderstorm just south of Crestomere, Alberta, on July 15/2010

July 25/2010 Sundre to Neapolis, Alberta Amazing Supercell

2010-07-26T17:02:00.006-06:00

A very rewarding day with a bit of skill and some luck involved! I chased an isolated right moving Supercell with amazing stacked plate structure yesterday from initiation on the foothills near Sundre, to dissipation east of Didsbury. After looking at 0z model data the night before and 12z the morning of, I liked the area between Cochrane and Red Deer for potential thunderstorms. Modest CAPE, 40-50knots of surface to H5 bulk shear and marginal dewpoints were forecast in that area. Warm 700mb temperatures concerned me, but what I liked the most was the lee trough forecasted on the 700mb VV chart for 0z, a great source of lift. I left the house around noon for my target area of sec HWY 766 between Olds and Cochrane and ended up hanging out in Didsbury most of the afternoon where a CU field had set up to the west and persistent easterly upslope winds were present. I also kept an eye on dewpoints in nearby Olds which stayed in the 10-13C range and luckily never mixed out. I almost gave up on the day around 5pm fearing a cap bust and no severe watches being issued, but instead I remained patient and stayed in my target area remembering the wave that was forecasted. I left Didsbury and headed west to photograph canola fields to kill some time when I noticed some crisp agitated CU near Sundre. I drove to the Harmattan area to get a better read on the now growing TCU that didn't appear to be struggling with a cap and parked on HWY 22 south of HWY 27 and watched this tower evolve into an LP Supercell. I feel I made a mistake by not anticipating a right move from this storm since at first it looked like it was moving ENE. I basically drove into the core trying to re-position and found some hard nickel sized hail! It ended up turning right, so I never did get truly ahead of it, but managed to stay close near the hook and took many photos mostly in the rain and hail. I think the upslope flow and lee wave (there was a lot of lenticular clouds near the storm by Sundre) had a lot to do with the formation of the storm. This may be the nicest storm I've had the pleasure to observe, chase and photograph!
Shortly after initiation looking west towards Sundre from HWY 22 south of HWY 27. Precip is already being vented away from the updraft. Good sign!
Just east of Sundre now as storm quickly attains LP Supercell status.
WOW! Amazing mothership Supercell spinning away over perfect storm viewing terrain between Sundre and Didsbury. If you look closely, you can see precip and some decent size hail falling in these images.
Supercell over canola! I let the storm pass to my south and watched it head southeast east of Didsbury near the Neapolis hamlet after showing signs of weakening. As you can see looking at the backside, the storm still had signs of rotation from the smooth base. It also had a very nice mammatus filled anvil!
I managed to save a satellite image showing the isolated Supercell near the QE2. It also shows a very decent anvil shadow as well!

July 15/2010 Rimbey to Clive, Alberta Supercell Photos

2010-07-16T15:41:00.004-06:00

40kts westerly 500mb flow, modest CAPE values east of the foothills, an approaching jet and southeast surface winds set the stage for severe thunderstorm development here in central Alberta yesterday. There was a supply of surface moisture as well due to immense rainfall from an upper low recently. (130mm in my rain gauge!) I hung around north of Sylvan Lake for the most part watching convection to my north near Winfield/Pigeon Lake, while keeping an eye out for towers and watching satellite/radar just in case something wanted to develop south. I made the decision to head north after the convection to the north, since a new storm formed and took a right turn. As soon as I got to it near Hoadley/Springdale it began to dissapate. The storm to its east heading for the Wetaskiwin/Hobbema area became the more dominate storm so I took off east on secondary highway 611 to get ahead of it, but I could see it surge and became very outflowish from behind the storm. I dropped south back into cleaner air on hwy 2a through Hobbema when I noticed a very nice tower to my southwest which could have formed on an outflow boundary or along the trough. This tower near Rimbey would eventually become a very nice Supercell Thunderstorm which I chased from just west of Crestomere to Clive. It took a nice right turn and nice structure and a ton of scud sucking was observed. I seen many CG strikes near the vault region as well. I never observed any hail as I maintained my position throughout the chase on the rainfree base side of the storm. It was a tough chase since this Supercell was in a treed area and it moving pretty quick. Trying to choose which roads to take for good viewing and to remain ahead of the storm was hard. Photography was also challenging as a lot of harsh highlights and backlighting was present. I had a great time watching this storm and I think I got some good photos.
Supercell southwest of Crestomere, Alberta.
Supercell about to cross secondary highway 792, south of Crestomere. I had road options to the east, so I wanted to get a look behind the storm. The storm is pretty much right in front of me here, this shot is taken way wide at 10mm.
Storm showing nice contrast and structure at the intersection of secondary highway 604 and range road 270 west of Morningside, Alberta.
Not much to be said here! Photos taken along twp road 420 west of Morningside. The storm started to lose strength not too long after these photos.
I let whats left of the updraft base here pass directly overhead in the Alix area and observed very cool boiling motions and a few small turbulence funnels.

June 29/2010 Brief Supercell near Rocky Mountian House- West of Rimbey Thunderstorm Photos

2010-07-01T00:35:00.005-06:00

A strong southwest 500mb jet streak, modest cape and moisture values, southeast surface winds and a surface low set the stage for our first true severe weather set up yesterday. I sat south of the city waiting to see what area would go first and decided to meet up with Pat from Alberta Foothills Weather for a cold one in Spruceview, and to get a better view of the convection trying to go in the hills. After finished our beverage and drooling over the storm on radar near Sangudo (nice Supercell v-notch radar presentation) we had our eye west towards the Rocky area as a storm was going up. The storm looked very good on a few radar scans, and I believe it was supercellular for a brief period, as striations and a wall cloud were observed. It's a good possibility that the convection/storm to the southwest of this lead cell led to the demise of this storm (precip from its forward flank choking out the updraft with cold air?) as it gusted out and went into an outflow dominate shelf/gust front. This new storm did develop a very nice wall cloud (you can see this new storm and wall cloud in the panorama photo on the far left) and was scud sucking pretty good but it also gusted out before it could get more organized and into the better southeast inflow. Too much outflow laying around. I decided not to follow it north towards the Calmar/Devon area and instead headed back home to torrential rain from a new marginal storm in Red Deer. We received just over 30mm from that downpour, which was one of the strongest I have seen in awhile. It was an ok day but I had high hopes for true Supercells sustaining themselves off the foothills and moving into the plains with the amount of shear in place. We still have a lot of summer and storm potential left!
Supercellular-ish thunderstorm with wall cloud north of Rocky Mountain House.

Outflow dominate storm west of Rimbey.

Panorama of both storms, west of Rimbey.

Outflow photo from passing shelf/gust front over HWY20, north of Bentley.

June 25/2010 Local Thunderstorm/Gust Front Photos

2010-06-25T23:05:00.004-06:00

Another local storm photography day. I noticed a few towers to the west of the city on my way home from work late this afternoon, and came home and watched their progress on radar and satellite. We finally made the decision to check out this storm as it closed in on Sylvan Lake and was rewarded with very nice color and contrast between Sylvan and Red Deer and throughout our time with it. We avoided the core, so we don't know how big the hail was associated with it. All we experienced were some gusty outflow winds. We abandoned the storm after seeing it weaken visually east of Lacombe on Hwy 815. As mentioned, the highlight was the color and contrast which made for some pleasing photos!

June 22/2010 Nova Joffre Thunderstorm Photo

2010-06-22T22:53:00.002-06:00

Nothing fancy, just a quick chase around the Red Deer region today, if you want to call it that! I took this photo of the thunderstorm directly north of the Nova Chemicals site near Joffre. You can see the plant in the center of the image. I'm sure the employee's took cover since this thing was spitting out quite a few CG's, which looked to be hitting the ground near the plant. It was not severe in my location. I'm still waiting for good shear to arrive which still looks to be on the way for early next week with the arrival of a trough, according to the recently updated 0z run of the GFS. I hope it verifies, since its still 144 hours out!

May 19/2010 Leedey/Rhea, Oklahoma Tornado

2010-05-31T13:34:00.004-06:00

After chasing a beautiful HP supercell in the Texas panhandle a day before, we were looking forward to this day because ingredients for a severe weather outbreak were coming together in western/central Oklahoma. We all were speculating whether or not the SPC would upgrade to a high risk for the day, since a day before this area was under a moderate risk and sure enough a high risk was eventually issued. No chaser likes to chase under a a high risk because usually there are plenty of storms and they turn into a huge mess early, but not on May 19th. We left Amarillo late morning for a target in the Clinton area and passed through the dryline near the Texas/Oklahoma border. We stopped for lunch and gas in Elk City, with bubbling CU on the dryline to our west. We soon observed a tower going up to the northwest near the triple point and caught up to the tower near Cheyenne. With no other chasers around, we literally watched this TCU grow overhead and eventually watched it tornado in front of us a 1/4 mile away. Amazing! There was rapid rotation in the wall cloud and a funnel soon appeared. We had confirmation of a tornado from red dirt being picked up since the condensation funnel never touched the ground. We watched it rope out in an open field and from there we left to get back into position. A long story short, the amount of chasers on this storm made chasing it unsafe. We left it for potential development more south soon after getting back near the notch because it becoming rainwrapped and because of the chaser convergence. We did see the Hennessey storm to the east, which looked amazing with a backsheared anvil and obvious overshooting top, but we stuck with going south. We did get another HP storm south of Norman near Noble, but we never observed any tornadoes. It's too bad we didn't get further south because a beauty of a supercell which we could see to the south was tracking near Wynnewood with tornadoes being reported. I can't complain about not going to what storm because since I was young I've always wanted to see a classic Oklahoma tornado. To watch a TCU develop into a supercell, and to watch a tornado drop near me was incredible!
The red dirt/clay of the Oklahoma countryside.

Rotating wall cloud and windmill from the Leedey supercell.

A funnel finally appears in the field just to the north of our location.

Getting excited now since a touchdown appears imminent!

Tornado on the ground just to our north-northeast. You can see the red dirt for confirmation!

We got into the vans shortly after my last tornado image to get east of the tornado but we pulled over after the tornado started to rope out. Very cool photo!

May 18/2010 Channing/Dumas/Stinnett, Texas Supercell

2010-05-30T19:54:00.003-06:00

We were fortunate enough to chase this beauty of a Supercell in the Texas panhandle on May 18th. We hung out in Dalhart and had lunch waiting for clearing to take place, and when it didn't seem like it was going to clear out in our area we decided to head northwest towards Clayton, NM because satellite showed clearing up that way. Half way there we noticed a tower go up to the south (in a pocket of clearing if i remember correctly!) so we turned around and eventually cought up with this storm near Channing. We chased and observed 2 tornadoes with this storm, a brief touchdown to the northeast of Channing and the other one near Dumas. No photos unfortunately since we were in the vans during both touchdowns. We chased the storm to Stinnett, where the towns sirens were activated and people were seeking shelter. That was pretty surreal to see! We left the storm for a new storm in the Dalhart area, and observed two nightime tornadoes with the storm, one near Dalhart and the other near Stratford. We spent the night in Amarillo to prepare for the next days chase in western Oklahoma.
Developing Supercell near Channing, Texas already rotating and exhibiting a nice inflow band.

At some points it looked cold/outflow dominate, but warm inflow was feeding into the storm and still showed signs of rotation.

A photo of me by Victor, our assistant on the trip showing strong inflow into the circulation. Getting close to Dumas.

Ground scraping meso/circulation! This looked absolutely insane. This inflow into the storm was very strong as well. Radar scan from 5:27 pm showing very decent Supercell reflectivity. Thank-you Pat!

Very nice structure looking west towards Dumas. This photo was shot between Dumas and Stinnett at 5:38pm, 10 minutes after the radar scan above. It already produced a few tornadoes.

A few more structure shots west of Stinnett. The storm turned into a more messy HP type awile after these photos were taken and some tornadoes were reported near Stinnett, but we didn't see them. All in all it was an awesome day!

June 15th/2009 Shelf Panorama

2009-09-05T14:15:00.003-06:00

I finally purchased and installed a copy of Photoshop CS3 Extended on my computer since I've been busy at work lately, and while playing around with it today, I made a panorama of the Shelf cloud I photographed just to the southwest of Red Deer on June 15th. Pat over at Alberta Foothills Weather has a few awesome pano's of this beauty up on his blog as well.

August 11, 2009 Severe Thunderstorm, Hail and Lightning

2009-08-12T00:34:00.003-06:00

A very quick and impromptu chase tonight! Fallon actually told me about the storm that rolled off the foothills west of the Sunchild Reserve tonight after I took our dog out for a walk around the block after supper. After debating whether or not to go, I decided to go, since storms aren't going to be around here very much longer. I got to the base near Gull Lake, ended up getting cored with strong winds, rain and decent sized hail on TWP road 402 east of the Woody Nook road and found ping pong ball to walnut sized hail around my location. The biggest stone I found was an inch and a half. A second round of convection fired west of Red Deer near sunset, and I was able to photograph a nice roll cloud underneath the storm. I also was able to sneak in a distant lighting shot after the storm passed Red Deer to the east. All in all it wasn't a bad night since I wasn't prepared to go out and chase.

August 2, 2009 Severe Warned Storms

2009-08-03T09:46:00.002-06:00

Yesterday was a cold front day sweeping down from the north while we sat in 26C temperatures and 16C dewpoints. I went after a storm which had a 40,000 foot or more top on it southeast of Rocky Mountain House. Shear was undirectional, so I wasn't in a big hurry to get to it. I met up with the base finally east of Innisfail after taking photos of the convection going off to the east. After just squeezing by the rain/hail core, I let the storm pass, took some more photos, and headed back to Red Deer. The 2 shots next to the fence are shot way wide at 10mm since the storm was literally overhead. Later on into the overnight, a severe line of storms developed along the central Alberta foothills with reports of baseball sized hail in Rocky Mountain House! As much as I want to see big hail, I dont want to in the sticks in the middle of the night. Overall, a good day for cloud photography!

July 26, 2009 Early AM Lightning

2009-07-26T06:50:00.002-06:00

I woke up early this morning, pretty much in the middle of the night, hoping to see lighting associated with a forecasted cold front coming down from the north. After peeking out the bedroom window and seeing sparks flying, I was out the door by 3:45 am! The lightning wasn't very frequent from my location, so the 4 photos below are from being patient while shooting for an hour and a half. 3 photos were shot with the Tungsten white balance setting and 1 was shot with the White Florecent setting.

July 4/2009 Unconfirmed Tornado/Funnel

2009-07-04T19:51:00.005-06:00

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.

2 Years ago today...

2009-06-10T12:26:00.001-06:00

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.

More 2008 Storm Photos...

2009-04-19T21:03:00.003-06:00

July 29, 2007 LP Supercells

2009-02-22T21:58:00.040-07:00

I thought I would make a post about the LP Supercells I chased on July 29th, 2007, just southwest of Alsike, Alberta. So far, they're the best structured storms I've ever seen. As you will see from the noisy quality of the photos, I used a crappy point and shoot digital camera, shot with no composition in mind, shot in terrible lighting conditions and didn't even notice the annoying powerlines in the way! I remember being extremely excited to be seeing these storms up close, so I just pointed and shot away. I've learned a ton about photography since, and wish I had the camera set up that I have now on that day. The models looked pretty good a few days before the 29th for storms to develop in Central Alberta. A nice trough on the west coast, good instability, some moisture, shear and upslope low level flow were present to initiate storms in the foothills. It all came together on the 29th and produced 2 LP Supercells in the foothills west of Drayton Valley, a storm west of Edson and a wicked looking Supercell radar-wise just to the northwest of Whitecourt. I watched radar and satellite loops all afternoon in Red Deer anticipating development and finally towers started to go up late in the afternoon. You could see the top of the Drayton Valley storm all the way from Red Deer! As soon as I seen the tower, I hopped in the truck and drove just over an hour to get to the storm and all I can say was wow.

0z 500mb chart showing the trough in northwestern BC with decent southwesterly flow in Central Alberta.

0z CAPE chart showing up t0 3000 j/kg in Central Alberta.

2200z Carvel scan showing an impressive Supercell west of Drayton Valley, a storm west of Edson and a wicked looking Supercell radar-wise just to the northwest of Whitecourt. I chased the storm that's west of Drayton Valley.

View of the still developing LP Supercell from Hwy 20, looking northwest between Hoadley and Winfield, Alberta. You can see the second LP tower developing behind the main storm.

I obviously got excited when I seen this sight! Crisp anvil, a rock hard updraft, and smoothed base showing signs of rotation. Looking west-north-west south of Breton, Alberta on Hwy 20.

A few kilometers away from the base now which is still organizing tighter at this point. Looking west on Twp Rd 484 just past Range Rd 42.

It doesn't get much better than this. A corkscrew/barberpole updraft spinning away, looking west on Twp Rd 484.

This LP had great mid-level rotation. This vertical shot shows the tilted updraft from stronger winds aloft.

I called EC to report this rotating wall cloud due west from the intersection of Twp Rd 484 and Range Rd 42 which prompted them to say that this storm was capable of producing tornadoes in their severe thunderstorm warning.

The start of a funnel appeared not long after the report I made to EC. After this photo I drove west down Twp Rd 484 for a closer view. You can see the lowering from the second LP in the background.

Funnel spinning away with crepuscular rays poking out of the second LP Supercell.

Funnel reaching nearly halfway to the ground. From my location, I could not confirm a ground circulation.

Dissipating funnel/circulation to the right, with the new LP due west along Twp Rd 484. The funnel only lasted a few minutes.

The still rock hard, but dying updraft from the first amazing LP passing to the north of my location, still on Twp Rd 484. I'm sure precip from the second LP's forward flank must have killed this storm.

Very nice bell shaped lowering ingesting scud curtesy of the second LP Supercell. Back on Hwy 20 now, looking west just south of the Alsike, Alberta gas station.

Beautiful anvil of the second LP passing to my north moving east-north-east along Hwy 39. After the first LP died, I watched the second LP for awhile but called off the chase after it showed signs that it was weakening. Apparently this storm gave Edmonton quite the light show later on!

Charts and radar scan from tornadovideos.net

Storms of 2008

2008-10-18T00:22:00.000-06:00

Overall, I was disapointed with the storms I was able to chase this year. Every storm seemed to be the shelfy-outflow dominate type, with no classic Supercell structure. One storm in the beginning of July, on the other hand, took on Supercell characteristics as it moved east off the foothills just south of Rocky Mountain House which eventually wrapped up tight near the Markerville area, and spun nicely for a brief period. Visually, it looked like it was going to at least drop a funnel, but precip for another storms forward flank killed any chance the storm had shortly thereafter. I'm obviously no meteorologist, but from looking at the models all summer, here in Central Alberta our shear was almost always directional, and we struggled to get any deep decent moisture that Saskatchewan and Manitoba always seem to receive! The storm of the year, in my opinion judging from photos, was in southeastern Saskatchewan on July 10th where the shear and deep moisture was present! Hopefully next summer will be better. Nonetheless, the storms I managed to photograph this year were photogenic, and I had alot of fun taking them. Unfortunately, I was unable to get any decent lightning photos, since the best opportunities came late at night when I was sleeping. Work sucks! Anyways, here are some storm photos with camera information and a brief description:

Canon Rebel XTi

Aperture: F-8

Shutter: 1/160

ISO:200

Focal Length: 18mm

This is the July 4th Supercell I mentioned above, where it tightened up nice and began to spin for brief time. Looking on the radar archive later on, a Carvel scan showed this storm with a hook around the same time this photo was taken. This is definetly the nicest updraft base I observed this summer.

Canon Rebel XTi
Aperture: F-8

Shutter: 1/15

ISO: 100

Focal Length: 18mm

The July 9th, 2008 Rimbey, Ab hailer! Sitting at home watching Carvel, this storm popped off the northwestern foothills and moved towards Rimbey. I got to the storm at the intersection of Hwy53 and Sec766 and noticed a huge hail core that I didnt want to be in! I stayed in front of it, and managed to get the tripod out to take this photo of it dumping hail near Rimbey. Photo taken just southeast of Rimbey.

Canon Rebel XTi
Aperture: F-10
Shutter: 1/13

ISO: 100

Focal Length: 18mm

Canon Rebel XTi

Aperture: F-10

Shutter: 1/6

ISO: 100

Focal Length: 18mm

July 13th, 2008. After chasing and abandoning an earlier storm that gusted out and became hugely outflow dominate, I found myself at the intersection of Sec587 and Sec791 looking at Carvel on the blackberry and seen new storm development in the foothills northwest of Sundre. I met this nice shelf on range road 10, south of Hwy27, east of the QE2 and purposely shot these with the canola field in the background to obtain great contrast. I let the storm pass over, and never found hail bigger than a nickel in this location.

Canon Rebel XTi

Aperture: F-5.6

Shutter: 1/30

ISO: 100

Focal Length: 18mm

July 26th, 2008.

This storm took on HP Supercell status after crossing the QE2 right at the Olds overpass, after being quite a shelfy, outflow dominate mess comming off the foothills. This is probably my favourite storm photo of 2008, the storm looks absolutely insane! Taken west of Sunnyslope, Ab on Sec582.

Canon Rebel XTi

Aperture: F-7.1

Shutter: 1/30

ISO:100

Focal Length: 18mm

August 9th, 2008. A very nice Shelf with laminar striations. I was up at my parents acreage in Poplar Ridge for a BBQ knowing a cold front was comming from the northwest, so I kept looking west, and finally seen this comming in. Hopped in the truck, went east on Hwy11A towards Red Deer, turned north on range road 281, set up the tripod adjacent to a canola field and managed to capture this shot.

Note: I'm not a big fan of post image editing since I believe in obtaining the best exposure possible out of the camera, but one cant deny the results you can get with minor editing! These photos have been in Adobe Lightroom, and honestly, not much was done to them. These are fairly close to what came out of the camera. Hope you like them.