Now that the storm has passed, the cleanup is underway in southern Alberta.
Environment Canada estimates about 200 mm (close to 8 inches) of precipitation fell in some parks of Kananaskis Country during the storm that soaked southern Alberta this weekend.
The national weather agency said the heaviest rain — in some cases snow — fell along the foothills and over parts of eastern Alberta, near the border with Saskatchewan.
While showers were still falling in some areas on Monday, Environment Canada said as of 6 a.m. on Sunday, June 22, the following rainfall totals were recorded:
- Cappon, Alta., located northeast of Dinorsaur Provincial Park, got 131.4 mm of rain;
- Azure, located just south of High River, recorded 120 mm of rain;
- Pekisko, located southeast of Longview, got 116.1 mm;
- Bragg Creek got 109.7 mm;
- Bow Valley, near Canmore, recorded 98.1 mm;
- Calgary, 69.5 mm;
- Lethbridge, 59 mm;
- Crowsnest 51.6 mm; and,
- Banff recorded 38.6 mm of precipitation.
For many living in southern Alberta, the intense storm brought back memories of the devastating floods in 2013, which happened on the same weekend 12 years earlier.
The city of Calgary, seen here at the height of the weekend storm, recorded a total of close to 70 millimetres of rain at the Calgary International Airport.
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“It’s much less precipitation than we had in 2013. We had 250 to 350 mm of precipitation in 2013 over about two and a half days,” said Dr. John Pomeroy, director of the Global Water Futures Programme at the University of Saskatchewan.
“(This year), in many of the same areas, it has been closer to 70 to 80 mm of precipitation — the highest I’ve seen is about 120 so far — and the other thing is that at the higher elevations, much of this is coming down in snowfall,” added Pomeroy.
“That snow will melt much more slowly than the rainfall runoff will occur and it will increase stream flows over several days, but generally by itself doesn’t cause flooding conditions.”
Prior to the storm’s arrival, Environment Canada warned about the possibility of snow at higher elevations.
Photos posted on social media showed heavy snow blanketing areas such as Sunshine Meadows, near Banff and the Highwood Pass, along Highway 40 in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, where up to 30 cm of snow fell, sending some vehicles sliding into the ditch.
This photo, taken at the Highwood Pass on Sunday, shows the heavy snow that made the road virtually impassable and sent some unprepared motorists sliding into the ditch.
Courtesy: Dave Stock
Late Thursday, Parks Canada shut down the Akamina and Red Rock Parkways in Waterton Lakes National Park, to prevent anyone from getting trapped on those remote high-elevation roads.
Those roads have now reopened.
The city of Calgary said it received 355 calls about localized flooding and pooling water on Saturday.
Amongst the hardest hit areas was Confederation Park where a car in the parking lot was submerged in the rapidly rising waters.
This car was submerged on Saturday by the rising waters in a parking lot at Calgary’s Confederation Park.
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The storm also included some strong wind gusts — over 80 km/h in many areas.
“Sunday afternoon when the winds picked up, that was when we saw lots of downed trees after two days of rain, that was probably our biggest challenge,” said Leanne Lammertsen, water and wastewater operations manager for the city of Lethbridge.
The city of Lethbridge received more than two dozen calls about downed trees during the weekend storm and on Monday, crews were busy cleaning up the mess.
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High flow rates in the Bow and Elbow rivers prompted the Calgary Fire Department to issue an advisory against boating and other water activities in or along the banks of the swollen rivers.
“For the safety of river users and emergency responders, the Calgary Fire Department advises everyone to stay off the Bow River until safer conditions return and the boating advisory is lifted,” says Calgary Fire Deputy Chief Pete Steenaerts.
“When our waterways flow this high and fast, there’s significant risk to anyone, regardless of your watercraft or skill level.”
The advisory also warns that water temperatures are cold, turbidity is increased and banks may also be unstable.
The good news, said Pomeroy, is the storm has broken the prolonged period of drought much of southern Alberta has been experiencing.
“We’ve been in a fairly severe drought through a lot of central and southern Alberta and this ends it for several months at least and that reduces the forest fire risk to minimal. It’s bringing the reservoirs back up to normal levels, they’ve all been below normal — all the rivers have been well below normal — and they’re going to be normal to a bit above normal for a while now,” said Pomeroy.
“This is good news for irrigation to community water supply. The fish are happy, then of course there’s hydroelectricity that can be generated from it. So there’s many, many purposes for it,” added Pomeroy.