Day 5/6

Well it is almost 12:30 Alberta time. Today was pretty lame. Drove to Rocky Mountain House and had lunch and saw some pretty areas and played with a turkey and saw a couple of weird animal including a mix of a zebra and a pony.

If I made a bad call it was hoping that storms would make it to the Drayton Valley area. storms that formed stayed tucked in around the mountains and didn't come out to the more plain-like areas. It was tough because it felt like storms were close and at the same time, just too far in the middle of roadless areas. So after a softball game in Entwistle (8-8 tie:-) we headed back to Red Deer. Stayed thre last night and will probably stay there again tomorrow night. Nice and relatively affordable Holiday Inn Express. Had dinner at Moxies and while there, Jim Booth reported some storms coming close to us. As it turned out storms finally came off the mountains at dark. We drove a few miles west of town and watched a good shelf cloud. Strong winds came through with a lot of blowing dust. Back at the hotel, we got some pea-sized hail. And now we just listen to the rain and thunder enjoying the storms in the high plains.

Tomorrow looks a little better with at least as much instability, but better low-level flow. Will there be residual boundaries? Not sure. Mid-level flow is still pretty pathetic but a few better storms might be possible. We will probably go to Banff and Lake Louise tomorrow.

Thursday looks interesting as the upper trough finally moves into Alberta with 50kt plus winds forecast to be from the south. Low-level flow is a little too southerly but there should be adequate shear for a few supercells. Friday looks text book in the mid and upper levels...we just need to have low-level winds remain backed (as they could in the valley) and good enough convergence to initiate storms. Sustained storms whould easily become supercellular with a good chance for tornadoes.

still pretty in Canada and still optimistic!