Significant Weather Events - Winter of Early 2019

It has been an exciting year so far. Who knew extreme cold and snow storms could be so fun?
But really! I have had the opportunity to cover 3 significant winter storms across the country so far in 2019, as well as have some fun with cold weather experiments given the anomalous extreme cold that has taken hold of the prairies for weeks now.

My first big trip came in mid January, where I documented my first east coast storm in Atlantic Canada with Chris St. Clair. It was a great opportunity to work with and learn from a weather presenter I've watched since I was in elementary school. We flew to Halifax and drove to Fredericton to cover the storm, where several centimetres of snow and ice pellets fell. Heavy freezing rain occurred southeast of the city toward Saint John and Sussex causing localized power outages, and we observed some minor overland/tidal flooding near Truro on our way back to Halifax.

Ice accretion on trees sounds like glass breaking when the wind blows. 

One of my favourite things about the trip out east was learning about "Storm Chips" - which weather-worn Easterners are said to purchase before battening down the hatches for East Coast storms. And there are actual Storm Chips - they're amazing. Here's a tweet where Chris and I find out some locals have purchased their storm chips ahead of the storm. 

STORM CHIPS

Not long after returning home, I went to Saskatchewan to cover a blizzard that quickly followed an Alberta clipper through the Regina area. It is amazing that whiteout conditions can occur with strong winds where only a centimetre of snow has previously fallen! Click here to see a live hit in the blizzard. 

After the blizzard, I headed to Manitoba, where the real fun began. I got to experience my first windchills of -50C and colder, and tried a couple of really fun cold weather experiments. Here is a link to where I throw a thermos full of boiling hot water into -40C air, and here is a link to a scene of bubble freezing in -32C temperatures on a prairie fence post. Thankfully, winds were light. I would later go on to successfully (and luckily) perform both of these experiments live on CBC's The National! Speaking of which, there were many live hits to be had during the cold weather, which necessitated me bundling up to an obscene extent. 

There's no evidence that's me, but many friends sent me pics of their TVs when these hits were happening.

A picture of my face after walking the streets of Winnipeg for an hour and a half trying to find locals to talk to.

And here's a video clip of this scene!

The bubble-freezing craze wore off on me and I had to give it a try. Beautiful. 

Screen capture of the hot water toss. Cool scenes. 

Extreme cold is typically seen as a nuisance due to its uncomfortable nature, and the fact it can wreak havoc in other ways, including the stress it places on those seeking shelter from the cold, burst pipes and water mains, and vehicle trouble, among other things. But strange things also happen when it is unusually cold, so it is also fun to see science in action. As the cold continued in Calgary, I tried the frozen egg yolk experiment, as well as the frozen noodles, which were super neat as well. Here is a link to the footage of our experiment and my patient wife. 

This is some next-level cold. 

In mid-February, I went to Vancouver to track back to back snowstorms that heavily impacted parts of the lower mainland and southern Vancouver Island. It was quite something to see the juxtaposition of snow right to a beach with palm trees!

Sunset Beach Park, in downtown Vancouver 

Finally, I got to see the methane bubbles of Abraham Lake for the first time. It is certainly worth the trip to such a beautiful and remote area of the Rockies. All attempts to light a methane bubble proved unsuccessful. Here's to next fall! Click here for a more cinematic look at the bubbles. 

Significant Weather Events - Latter Half of 2018

The following will be a recap of some of the more significant weather events I covered since between June and December, 2018, as well as some of the more memorable moments I've had as a video journalist for The Weather Network.

The year featured fewer than normal severe storms, large hail, coverage of the aftermath of North America's most violent tornado in 2018, a heavy snow event in Calgary, truck-toppling winds in southern Alberta, and a beautiful waterspout off the coast of Maui to cap off the year. I also got to try grilled cheese with crickets at the Calgary Stampede, and was given a name from a Blackfoot Elder that translates to "storm chaser".

After a rather dull chase trip to the US plains, my next major chase on June 9th in eastern Alberta actually turned out to be my favourite Alberta chase of the season - which is odd, given that it was the first Alberta chase (the foothills seriously underperformed in 2018). Glen Bell and I tracked a storm from near Vegreville that had initially struggled in dry air before crossing a nice moist axis in the boreal transition to the east, blowing up into a wonderfully-sculpted supercell.

On June 14, Ryan Wunsch and I tracked a beast of a storm that rode the US border near Estevan, Saskatchewan. Having chased a section of the backroads in that area without issue previously, I felt okay with chasing the grid that day. Following a paper map book, we ended up on a road that terminated at a raging river with no bridge, despite it appearing like a legitimate road in the atlas. With the storm bearing down behind us at nearly 70km/h, backtracking meant punching the core of the beast that was chucking baseballs. Needless to say, we got whacked. 

July 10 was the next major prairies chase - also in southern Saskatchewan. Numerous tornadoes were documented that day, though none that I saw. I documented large hail and damaging winds near Val Marie and Mankota. Click here for a look.

MOAR hail.

Here is some oddly-shaped hail that fell in July near Dogpound, which formed on conical graupel embryos - apices up.

After August 2, I didn't see another flash of lightning until December 28 in Maui. It was a slow storm year on the prairies, and very smoky once again.

However, covering the Alonsa, Manitoba would prove to be one of the most memorable experiences of the year. I break that down in this post here. Check it out. 

I also visited the Beachwood Estates area of High River to see the community 5 years after the 2013 floods. It was pretty surreal to see what essentially amounted to a ghost town of abandoned luxury homes. Click here for a look inside.

Some homes were propped up on blocks to be moved. Others were destroyed on location.

I visited Waterton Park to see the burn following the previous season's Kenow Mountain wildfire, that threatened destroying the townsite. The new undergrowth was quite stunning, with purple fireweed sprouting up among the black. 

First attempt at shooting the Milky Way, on a summer night at Forgetmenot Pond. There was a grizzly on the other side that kept me slightly anxious in the dark.

My wife and I spent a week on the Big Island of Hawaii in August, and I got to tour the Leilani Estates neighbourhood with a member of the National Guard, just days after the lava river of Fissure 8 turned off. So while I didn't get to see any lava, I did witness the apocalyptic scenes of a neighbourhood covered in lava flows, whose vegetation had wilted in response to sulphur gas. We also visited South Point a day before Hurricane Lane was set to impact the Hawaiian Islands, so we saw some rather large swells pounding the coastline.  

A road vanishes under what was the lava river of Fissure 8.

Unrelated, but also memorable, was being able to sample some strange foods at the Stampede, including prairie oyster balls, cricket grilled cheese, giant squid on a stick, and charcoal ice cream. Click here for a video of the ordeal. 

Grilled cheese and crickets. If you close your eyes, they're like crispy onions.

In September, I got to go on a trip to The Weather Network's headquarters for some training. I went a little early so I could do some exploring, and visited Detroit and Point Pelee National Park. While there, I got to witness the migration of the Monarch Butterflies, that were covering leaves in the southernmost trees of mainland Canada by the thousands. Click here to see them!

Meeting my fellow video journalists from around the country!

In fall, I went to the Blackfoot Crossing museum near Bassano, AB, and met a local elder who told me some of the words and phrases in the Blackfoot language used to talk about storms. He also gave me a Blackfoot name, for which I felt highly honoured. Click here to hear his voice.

Calgary also had its snowiest ever day for the month of October on the 2nd, which was also the 7th snowiest day overall, with 32.8cm of snow falling. The storm total was 39cm, which effectively shut down the city for a day, and kicked off what would be the start of a long winter (albeit one that wasn't overly cold until February). Click here for a look at what scenes were like around the city. 

The Canadian Rockies provide many splendid scenes at all times of the year. I enjoyed taking in the golden larches of late September, as well as the opportunity to skate on a recently frozen, glass-like Johnson Lake near Banff. Pure ecstasy. Click here for video of that experience! Also, I checked out a difficult-access cave in Haffner Creek, Kootenay National Park, BC. The delicate stalagmites of ice that formed from slow dripping are quite otherworldly. Click here for a look inside!

Stalactites and stalagmites of ice. 

A strong, downslope wind event toppled trucks in southern Alberta on December 13, and again later in the month (when we were in Hawaii). Between Stavely and Fort Macleod, I think I counted 12 trucks laying the ditch. The strongest winds in this corridor are often unfortunately 100% crosswind. Click here to see a semi shaking in the wind on the side of Highway 2! 

Dec 13 near Claresholm, Alberta

I got to release a weather balloon from the Stony Plain site west of Edmonton in December while doing a story on e-waste. This of course, pleased the weather nerd in me.

Happy weather nerd.

And finally, after going almost the entire year without seeing a tornado, a waterspout formed a couple of miles off the beach of Maui while we were doing a photo shoot. We watched the entire 20-odd minute life cycle, and it was sure exciting!

A beefy waterspout harmlessly sips ocean water off Makena Beach,. 

The 2018 Alonsa, Manitoba Tornado

A little before dark on the evening of Friday, August 3rd, a violent tornado carved a swath through aspen forest and cropland before tearing through the Margaret Bruce Beach campground on the western shores of Lake Manitoba, where numerous long weekend campers were impacted. Given a preliminary rating of EF3, the tornado was on the ground for over 20 minutes, with a damage path of up to 800m wide in places. The tornado would soon be upgraded to a low-end EF4 (with winds of nearly 275km/h) as a result of the high-end damage it caused on the property of the single fatality that occurred about 3 kilometres west of the lake. It would end up being the strongest tornado in North America in 2018.

Screenshot of the Alonsa tornado from a cell phone video, courtesy Pamela Sul.  See links below for more footage.

Cell reception was spotty to non-existent near the beach, so the cell phone alerts were largely missed. A few campers at the beach had signal boosters, who were able to alert others nearby that a tornado was approaching. At the last minute, many folks drove west down the only road to and from the beach, which ended up being toward the tornado. Some made it out ahead of the tornado, and some did not. The ones who didn't, along with the rest of the folks at the beach, joined in an impressive effort to shelter in the homes of local residents. Residents of one home had 40 people in their basement, which ended up essentially untouched, while the neighbour's house sustained severe damage.

There were numerous stories of survival that bordered on the miraculous (see links below). Given a scene that was eerily reminiscent of Alberta's Pine Lake tornado in 2000, it very easily could have turned out a lot worse.

Seeing the damage firsthand, and also experiencing the smell of raw, torn up Earth, was a little overwhelming. I had the privilege of speaking with many of the survivors, hearing their harrowing stories, and in many cases being able to tell them. I also got to hear an audio recording of the tornado ripping a cabin off its foundation, with 14 frightened people hiding in the basement. A trailer crashed into the centre of the basement, and a family dog went missing as the tornado passed. To hear the recording alongside the family who struggled to relive the moment as it played was chilling. I will never forget that.

Below, I share links to some of the stories and footage that came of this tornado, along with photographs of the destruction. 

Click here for an interview with Les Brown on his step-father Jack Furrie, 77, who was killed on his property. Also, from a damage survey specialist, who explains the upgrade to EF4.

Click here for stories of campers at the beach who tried to flee the tornado.

Click here for more stories of survival, and the lack of cell reception.

Click here for the story of the family who hid 40 people in their basement, and of their neighbours, who were injured.

Click here to hear about some of the seemingly miraculous occurrences at the Cabak residence.

Click here for amazing footage of the restroom building that was ripped off its foundation, leaving most toilets behind in tact.

Click here for footage of the tornado, as well as other incredible scenes of damage. 

Satellite imagery of the tornado damage scar

Trailers in general are a bad place to be with a tornado approaching.

Several vehicles and hundreds of hay bales were tossed into adjacent Lake Manitoba. Debris would wash ashore for days following the tornado. 

A tractor and baler weighing several tons was picked up and tossed next to the cabin where 14 people survived, despite the cabin being lifted off. 

This is the cabin where 14 people took shelter, in the NW corner by the hot water tank.  After the cabin came off, the cinder block wall on the south side collapsed inward, followed by a trailer landing in the basement, along with other debris. No one was hurt. 

Denuded trees are also a sign of a violent tornado.

Here is the campground restroom. 3 of 4 toilets still intact, despite the building being lifted off and dumped to the east. 

The foundation of Jack Furrie's home. While his bed sheets were in uprooted trees on the property, his mattress was found   nearly a kilometre to the northeast. While he didn't have a basement, there was a shallow root cellar. It is uncertain where he was when the tornado hit, but the winds were so violent here that he would have likely been in peril anywhere in his yard.

Mature trees ripped clean out of the ground a few metres east of the foundation of Furrie's home.

Ground scouring over his garden unearthed potatoes. 

Furrie's dog Brandy was still searching for him several days after the tornado 😢. 

A photo of Furrie's property several years before the tornado.

An aerial photo several days after the tornado of the same scene as above.  It is clear Furrie's home took a direct hit, based on its location in the centre of the damage swath as indicated by the aspen forest. 

Calgary Airport Weather Stations

Recently, I had the chance to visit a weather observer at CYYC, who gave me the lowdown on how things work there. First, the data that is used by MSC's and others' public products is sourced from the Nav Canada contracted station "Calgary Intl A". There is also a second automatic site taking observations that is operated by ECCC, which is the climate site "Calgary Int'l CS". The latter site's instruments actually exist a stone's throw from the weather observers' station, while the observer's actual instruments exist 2km SW of their location, feeding back information about temperature, humidity, and windspeed. A distance of 2km is enough to lead to a slight difference in observed values at times, which we have seen on occasion between the two stations. The other two official stations nearby are those near Canada Olympic Park and at Springbank Airport (which is an auto station as well for some reason, despite being one of Canada's busiest VFR airports).

Google Earth image of Calgary International Airport, and location of weather stations

The observer takes hourly observations of sky conditions and visibility (or more frequently during changeable and significant weather), as well as measurements of precipitation when applicable. The observer's site has a staircase that goes to the roof of the trailer for a clear, 360 degree view of the sky and surrounding horizon. North of the cabin exists a level plot atop which the ceilometer sits (for determining cloud base height/vertical visibility), as well as a rain gauge, a de-commissioned tipping bucket rain gauge, a snow gauge (inside an inverted bell, used for measuring liquid equivalent of snow every 6 hours if applicable), and a weaver snow board (which is a white wooden board used with a wooden ruler to take hourly snow totals, being reported as cumulative every hour that at least a centimetre falls for 6 hour periods, before being dusted off to start again). 

The barometer is inside the observer's cabin, with those values (as well as those of the temperature, humidity, and wind speed) being electronically fed into the system. The values of the ceilometer, sky condition, visibility, and precipitation are manually input by the observer. 

Looking north from the observation deck at the on-site instruments

Observer's trailer and observation deck

A cold, lonely chair on the roof

Barometer showing station pressure inside the cabin

The large copper cylinder sits inside the snow gauge bell collecting snow, before being melted down and poured into a beaker via a funnel

The weaver snow board

A closer look at the snow gauge 

The ECCC-MSC climate station across the road from the observer's cabin

Spring Outlook 2019

February

Winter 2018/19 started out quite mild. In fact, for a while I was beginning to think that we might not even dip to -20C during the cold season for the first time since records began, as we had escaped those values through November, December, and even January - with weak El Nino conditions being forecast to develop. We even saw an explosion in the tick population during mid-winter, which is quite unusual for the area.

However, come February 1st, it was like a switch was flipped, and we went from anomalously mild conditions to anomalous cold. In fact, February 2019 turned out to be the 4th coldest February in Calgary since records began (1885), after 1904, 1887, and the coldest ever, in 1936. The mean temperature for the month was -18.2C, compared with an average monthly mean temperature of -5.4C. This is in stark contrast to the recent and memorable February of 2016, during a strong El Nino, when the monthly average was 1.4C - the second warmest February on record in Calgary!

Highly anomalous cold existed in the western Canadian Prairies and northern US high plains during February. Image courtesy Weatherbell. 

Every day during the month featured below average temperatures.

A sudden stratospheric warming event took place around New Years, which resulted in the Polar Vortex splitting into two daughter vortices - one of which camped out over northern Hudson Bay for several weeks, sending wave after wave of extreme cold across the Canadian Prairies. Edmonton had an extreme cold warning for 11 consecutive days during the first half of February, and one of Calgary's two weather stations at CYYC failed to rise above freezing the entire month.

The ECCC climate station at Calgary International Airport (not the Nav Canada station, whose data is used publicly) reached -0.4C on Feb 22. Image courtesy ECCC's historical climate data site. 

Going Forward

It seems the current cold in early March across the prairies will be the last extended period of extreme cold of the cold season, as a large-scale pattern change is expected mid-month. Current -EPO conditions will abate in the coming days, as a blocking high over the Beaufort Sea breaks down. Moreover, as deep convection continues to move east across the Indian Ocean, we will likely maintain phase 3 of the MJO for several days which generally teleconnects to continued cool conditions across the prairies. By mid-month, we begin to see signs of neutral and even +PNA conditions, yielding much longed-for upper ridging over western North America, at which time we may see a period of above seasonal values across western Canada between the second and fourth weeks of March. This could yield rapid snowmelt and the possibility of at least minor overland flooding across parts of the prairies, in areas where snowpack is more substantial. Meanwhile, a weak El Nino is ongoing, and has a 55% chance of continuing through the rest of spring according to NCEP. This signal should further yield dry conditions with above seasonal temperatures - especially over the western prairies. Ongoing drought conditions in places and the potential for seasonal wildfires in May throughout the boreal forest are likely to be considerations. 

EPS Ensemble forecasts hinting at +PNA conditions developing during mid-month. Image courtesy weathermodels.com

Weak El Nino conditions could persist into early summer. Image courtesy IRI/CPC. 

The Canadian Drought Monitor reveals that local areas of severe drought have developed across parts of the prairies, with local D2 (severe drought) conditions in far NW Alberta and along the southern foothills, in south-central Saskatchewan, and in the extreme southern Red River Valley of Manitoba. Apparently there is even a pocket of D3 conditions near Fort Vermilion. These are likely the cumulative result of the past two relatively hot and dry growing seasons across much of the prairies. A below-normal snowpack also exists across parts of south-central Alberta. However, winter snowpack plays much less of a role in the development of drought than does a lack of growing season precipitation - since drought conditions are particularly sensitive to the amount of rain that falls in the summer. This is both due to the fact that the ground is frozen in winter, preventing absorption of water, and that over two thirds of annual prairie precipitation falls during the spring and summer - with a large proportion of that resulting from thunderstorms. Dry ground also helps with getting crops planted quicker and more efficiently. We just need that June monsoon to come!

Image from the Canadian Drought Monitor.

Image courtesy ACIS, revealing current snowpack relative to the long-term normal over stubble.

The extreme cold across the eastern prairies, combined with recent heavy snows across southern Manitoba and parts of North Dakota have led to an increased flood risk this spring. A deeply frozen ground and potential rapid warming trend later in March could lead to significant runoff and overland flooding - especially along the Red River Valley south of Winnipeg. Ice jams will also pose a somewhat greater threat this spring owing to the thicker ice that has formed in the extreme cold. The area is accustomed to dealing with spring flood risks, with only minor flooding expected over cropland and some roadways near the Red River. However, the degree of severity of potential flooding will depend on how the month of March transpires - both in terms of additional precipitation, and rapid warming trends following extreme cold. Hopefully, flooding turns out more like 2011 than 2009!  

Snow water equivalent, courtesy NOAA, reveals a sizeable snowpack across parts of central AB/SK, and southern MB.

Meanwhile, the Alberta mountain snowpack is generally normal to above normal north of Highway 1, below normal between Highways 1 and 3, and closer to normal south of Highway 3 to the US border. There is still time for snow to be added to mountain snowpacks, but a dry signal overall through spring reduces the likelihood of this scenario. Nonetheless, both an average summer, or one influenced by El Nino conditions, would tend to yield more normal rains in southern Alberta in June and July, which would both curb developing drought conditions, and ensure a lack of water shortages for southern Alberta's irrigation country. 

Mountain snowpack west and southwest of Calgary is generally running below normal. Image courtesy the Government of Alberta Rivers website. 

...and beyond

For what it's worth, my sense is that following a dry spring, this summer's rainfall and convective activity will trend toward more normal conditions than we saw during the past two years. Weak El Nino conditions may or may not persist into summer, but in either case, more normal precipitation patterns would tend to be expected across southern and central Alberta. In terms of the PDO, slightly cool conditions will likely persist into spring, which also tends to favour cooler and wetter conditions across the prairies - at least in years where more significant negative PDO conditions exist. It is unknown to what extent (if any) this will play on prairie weather this coming warm season, or if the combination of -PDO and weak El Nino conditions will work against each other, reducing their effects. This also goes for tornado season in the US Plains. El Nino conditions often translate to quieter US tornado seasons - however, with no significant large-scale climate patterns expected to dominate into the summer, we could easily see more normal tornado numbers there as well - which might seem like a lot, given the past couple of seasons!

To be taken with a grain of salt at this range, but climate models have been fairly consistent with the transition to wetter conditions in the late spring/early summer in parts of the prairies, including southern Alberta. Image courtesy Tropical Tidbits.

Slightly cooler than average SSTs (-PDO) exist along the west coast of North America. Image courtesy NOAA.