With the hockey season on its annual summer hiatus, the intense rivalry between Alberta’s two biggest cities has taken a very different twist this summer and it’s all about the contrasting weather in Calgary and Edmonton.
“To give you some statistics, so far this year in Edmonton, they’ve received 533.8 millimeters of precipitation through the months of June and July,” Environment Canada meteorologist Brian Proctor said on Friday.
“That’s a record for the whole summer, if we consider the months June, July and August together. The previous record was 417.1 millimeters set in 1953.
“Just an amazing amount of moisture.”
In the month of July alone, Edmonton got 264.7 millimetres of precipitation, leading to flooded roads and basements, uprooted trees, cancelled concerts and outdoor events and lots of good-natured jabs from their friends and family just down the QE2 Highway.
The City of Edmonton expects the cost of the storm cleanup so far this summer to come in at $20-30 million.
By contrast, Calgary has received just 10.4 millimetres of precipitation in July.
“Really dry is probably the best way I can word it,” Proctor said.
“We think about our precipitation in the month of June, we saw about 108.1 mm at the city airport and really the majority of that fell on two different events — one on the first where we saw 26.4 mm and that June 27-28 event where we saw 49.9.
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Proctor said of the 108 mm that fell in June, close to 75 per cent came down in those two storms.
“Since that point, as we moved into July, the moisture hasn’t been available for thunderstorms or anything to develop.”
However, in Edmonton, the summer storm season that started with many June rainfalls ramped up with a vengeance in July — storm after storm after storm.
Environment Canada said each storm event has helped feed the next.
“One of the things to think about is, for thunderstorms — moisture is like gasoline,” Proctor said. “We had copious amounts of ‘gasoline’ available out there for thunderstorm activity to develop, and as it did develop, it sort of began tracking over and over across the same areas.
“Somewhat more localized and high variabilities across the city in terms of who’s seeing that precipitation, but in general the track of these thunderstorms has been the same over and over and over again — initiating on the foothills then moving north eastwards across the city of Edmonton.”
“It’s really been very, very convective and extreme downpours.”
Looking ahead to August, Proctor said the monthly forecast shows little change in the weather — Calgary continues to be dry while Edmonton “continues to be wet if I can put it that way.”
The forecast for Edmonton on the first day of August is for a mix of sun and clouds with a 30 per cent chance of showers in the afternoon.
Sunday’s forecast is cloudy with a 60 per cent chance of showers with a drop in temperature to the low teens.
The weather forecast for Calgary on Saturday — more sun and a temperature in the mid-30s — that’s about 10 C above normal.
With just a slight chance of a few showers in Calgary on Sunday and none in Environment Canada’s seven-day forecast for Calgary, it has prompted the city to issue a “fire advisory” due to the “ongoing high temperatures and dry conditions.”
Calgary seems to be living up to its tourism moniker as Alberta’s “Blue Sky City.”
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