This year, summer didn’t really show up in Calgary like it usually does, but the rain certainly did.
Over the past three summer months, Calgary had a total of 71 days with rain, with August being the worst. In that prime summer month alone, it rained almost every day.
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All that precipitation boosted totals to 24 millimetres more than what the city normally has during June, July and August.
As for severe weather, it was an active year for the province. On average, Alberta records 12 to 15 tornadoes during the summer but this year, the number of touchdowns nearly doubled to 23.
Chris Ratzlaff is with Prairie Storm Chasers and says most of the tornadoes weren’t spotted by storm chasers, but instead the public reported them to Environment Canada.
“A lot of these storms that produce the tornadoes they weren’t supercellular storms,” Ratzlaff said.
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“They were smaller storms that produced a lot of landspout tornadoes which are hard to chase and hard to predict where they’re going to be.”
Tornadoes weren’t the only thing Albertans were battling with this past summer.
The province had twice as many hail storms and the number of wind storms tripled.
It was also a record year for lightning strikes, not only in Alberta but across Canada.
Of the almost four million strikes recorded across our country, Alberta experienced a third.
Although this summer was active, it certainly didn’t bring the heat it usually does.
Typically, Calgary has 37 days above 25 degrees, but this summer Calgary had barely half that.
Now as we look ahead at fall, Environment Canada is forecasting near-normal temperatures and precipitation for southern Alberta.
“We are forecasting for there to be a slightly above normal fall season so hopefully we’re still getting some nice weather in the coming months,” said Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist Kyle Fougère.
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