Showers coming to southern Alberta, but not enough

CALGARY -

The action is north of Calgary, but the local effects will be palpable.

The Gulf of Alaska low closing in means we can further fine-tune its effects, but first, let's examine last night:

Oh, what a night!
Severe #abstorm watches came through across the board, with #Calgary falling under a warning, too - but the path of least resistance for that particular storm drove it to the southeast, instead. #yyc pic.twitter.com/ShzvoRiOnK

— Kevin Stanfield (@CTVStanfield) August 5, 2021

Environment Canada played it all properly, delivering a warning to the Calgary area for severe storms – especially after that gust front pushed in and amplified our maximum wind gusts into the 70 km/h range briefly.

The storm ended up pushing off to the southeast and weakening – it was following the path of least resistance.

On to the Next Big Thing as weather-makers go. Friday, the stacked low (it exists in the upper and lower atmosphere) presses across the Rockies. Thursday, we're under the lingering effect of our ridge, which makes for our heat warning lasting another day. That falls off tomorrow with the low.

Showers are likely to rip from the local foothills as that low arrives, some of which may trigger thundershowers. Heavier showers will roll into northern Alberta. Unfortunately, we're still lacking for precipitation in southern Alberta.

When showers roll through, they may develop into spotty thundershowers with a largely west-to-east trajectory.

After that, the cooler air starts to fold in. Our temperatures will assuredly fall away from heat warning criteria and stay there for a couple of days.

Unfortunately, the strong shower potential for southern Alberta that was forecast for Sunday has fallen off considerably.

There's still time for that to change, which would be handy – Agroclimate Canada's charting below shows our precipitation percentiles in the Calgary zone between 10th and 20th percentile. Not good.

Your five-day:

Thursday

• Sunny
• Daytime high: 29 C
• Evening: showers, low 16 C

Friday

• Partly cloudy, afternoon shower potential, storm risk
• Daytime high: 28 C
• Evening: showers, low 12 C

Saturday

• Some cloud
• Daytime high: 24 C
• Evening: some cloud, low 13 C

Sunday

• Scattered showers
• Daytime high: 20 C
• Evening: showers, low 11 C

Monday

• Scattered showers
• Daytime high: 23 C
• Evening: showers, low 13 C

The photo of the day goes to Debbie, capturing a reddish sunset perfectly positioned on the pines.

You can submit your weather photos here, or email me: Kevin Stanfield , OR you can just tweet at me.