UPDATE: Calgarians clean up after powerful storm tears down trees and knocks out power
Central and southern Alberta were hit with a series of thunderstorms Thursday night, that brought hail, knocked over trees and caused power outages.
As of 9:40 p.m. Fortis Alberta was still reporting thousands of outages due to lightning and weather outside of Calgary, while Enmax was reporting outages in some northwest and southwest communities within Calgary.
Severe thunderstorm watches started popping up early in the afternoon in anticipation of the change in weather patterns.
According to the alert, “a low pressure system approaching Alberta from the Pacific Northwest will develop severe thunderstorms on the Alberta foothills late this afternoon. These thunderstorms will move north and northeast and persist well into the evening.”
By the supper hour, many watches had turned in severe thunderstorm warnings, including for the city of Calgary.
The first storm to hit Calgary saw wind gusts of 93 km/h at the Calgary International Airport.
Reports started coming in all over the city of trees that had been downed by wind and possibly lightning damage.
Environment Canada was reporting toonie-sized hail in southern Alberta near Blairmore.
As the storms continued east, areas in the Strathmore, Brooks and Vulcan counties were placed under a tornado watch at around 8:22 p.m..
“A line of severe thunderstorms is currently moving through southern Alberta. There is a slight risk that tornadoes could form with this line this evening.
This is a dangerous and potentially life-threatening situation.”
As of 9:40 p.m. there were no tornado watches or warnings in the province of Alberta.
At the height of the active weather there were watches and warnings stretching from Grande Prairie to Cypress Hills Provincial Park.
For a list of current weather watches and warnings click here.
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To report severe weather, send an email to ec.storm.ec@canada.ca or tweet reports using #ABStorm.