Looking Back: SEVERE Summer Weather in ALBERTA

[Alberta] [Saskatchewan] [Manitoba]

(Excerpts from The Canadian Weather Trivia Calendar)

• July 14, 2000: The tornado at Pine Lake resulted in 12 deaths. Approximately 140 people were injured and four hundred camping sites were destroyed at the Green Acres Campground. The tornado touched down 5 km west of the campground, and travelled eastward. It was on the ground for 15 to 20 km. Damage assessment suggests that winds within the central corridor reached 300 kilometres per hour. In addition, Weather Watchers reported hail as large as baseballs.

• July 24, 1996: Calgary was pounded by the second severe hail and rainstorm in eight days. Hail the size of oranges clogged storm sewers and caused massive flooding. Drivers were marooned on top of their vehicles. Eight days before, hail was so deep that children made "hailmen" and enjoyed some mid-summer tobogganing.

• July 19, 1996: The foothills and eastern slope area of southern Alberta is one of the most lightning prone regions in Canada, receiving over half a million strikes a year. On this day, lightning hit a truck near Alhambra, AB. The driver felt only a short jolt. Over the next two days, all four tires on the truck went flat. The lightning had burnt out the tires' steel belting.

• June 17, 1996: A Calgary teenager missed her school exams when lightning struck within a few centimetres of her. Just after 5 a.m., as a thunderstorm boomed across the city, a lightning bolt entered her bedroom, scorched her prized hopechest, tore a hole in the ceiling, and set the bed on fire. The girl suffered minor burns to her hand and elbow.

• June 3, 1996: In Halkirk, AB, a torrential downpour of almost 175 mm in an hour washed out crops, flooded roads and ditches, left gullies everywhere, pushed down fences and disrupted telephone service. When storm sewers couldn't handle the deluge, manholes popped their tops. That hour's recorded level was more than half the area's annual average.

• July 25, 1994: Soaring temperatures led Edmontonians to use 997 megawatts of power per household to light and cool their homes, setting a record for summertime energy consumption. This nearly matched winter use records, which were 1000 megawatts daily.

• July 31, 1987: A tornado ripped through eastern Edmonton and parts of Strathcona County. It reached wind speeds of up to 420 km/hr and remained on the ground for an hour. The tornado killed 27 people, injured hundreds, destroyed more than 300 homes, and caused more than $330 million in property damage. The loss of life, injuries and destruction of property made it one of the worst natural disasters in Canada's history. Tornado intensity estimates based on damage observations ranged from F0 (light) near the edge of the track to F4 (devastating) in intermittent patches near the centre of the track.

• May 14, 1986: A spring blizzard with winds up to 80 km/h surprised residents of southern and central Alberta. In Calgary, 500 homes were without power for up to a week. Telephone service was also interrupted when more than 2,300 telephone poles were downed across the province. The Alberta government asked the public to make as few phone calls as possible.

• May 28, 1972: Only a trace of rain had fallen all month in Grande Prairie, AB. That, coupled with a heat wave with 40 degree temperatures, had residents gobbling up enormous amounts of water. Then a pump at the treatment plant broke. The city engineer's solution to the crisis? "Drink beer."

• April 29, 1903: Seventy-six men, women and children died in Frank, AB when 82 million tonnes of limestone from Turtle Mountain roared down and obliterated the entrance to a coal mine. The rock debris covered the valley below to a depth of 100 metres and swept across the valley to knock out part of the village of Frank.