Got heavy rain in the Southland area. Rolled like a fog over us until there was no visibility out the window.
Before that though, a bolt of lightning struck something very close by. There was only a second of lapse between flash-to-bang. And it CRACKED through the air. My poor cat woke up with such a start.
It came in just as I was framing a tie-in on my occupied (and shingle-less )house's roof. FML
The rain was blowing almost completely sideways, and the sky turned black for ??:?? (I don't know) I do know that stapling tarpaper with lightning cracking almost simultaneously with the thunder sux0rz bigtime.
I had water running out of my 200 amp panel. Nothing tripped for whatever reason. I didn't investigate that issue further. The drywall ceiling collapsed in the basement.
The roofers will be here today to finish up.I hope.
On the plus side: The suburbs absorbed the hail, and my garden was spared (again).
Here is my video out my front door. At the end I realize that 1) it's starting to hail, 2) I have an empty garage, and 3) I'm taking a video of my car.
The storm was pretty intense down in Woodbine. Rained and hailed extremely hard for about 20 minutes. I had waterfalls coming out of my eaves, a river running down the street in front of my house, and a 25 foot diameter lake in the green belt behind my house. Luckily my house sits on high ground so there is never really a risk of flooding. I think 90% of Calgary would have to flood before my house would.
Downtown and The Beltline just got some rain and very fine hail stones, as the storm passed through us heading south I could see one of the hail-stop planes flying right in the path of the storm seeding the cloud at around 5000' or so. Must have had the other one up higher.
Here is my video out my front door. At the end I realize that 1) it's starting to hail, 2) I have an empty garage, and 3) I'm taking a video of my car.
... nice!
I'm in Mckenzie and we didn't get any hail but that's the hardest I've ever seen it rain in Calgary. Rivers flowing down both sides of the street and through the middle of the alley.
The only time I've ever seen rain that bad was in a tropical storm in Mexico.
The storm was pretty intense down in Woodbine. Rained and hailed extremely hard for about 20 minutes. I had waterfalls coming out of my eaves, a river running down the street in front of my house, and a 25 foot diameter lake in the green belt behind my house. Luckily my house sits on high ground so there is never really a risk of flooding. I think 90% of Calgary would have to flood before my house would.
Ha, thats what you think! Calgary's terrible clay soil makes it so pretty much any house will flood.
Case in point: My old house was on the very top of a hill, that was on the top of the West hill, and even then, a whole bunch of houses flooded on our block back in 2005.
Heck, Woodbine is basically at sea level compared to that place.
One kind is when a big pool builds up on the street and floods the whole area.
Another kind would be water coming down so hard, that it cannot get away from the house fast enough, and builds up in window wells, etc.
In 2007 my parents house's basement got a bit of water in it from the second kind. The first kind is impossible at my parents house due to it's location - there's a large hill two houses down.
I'm in Copperfield and heard a little bit of rain, but didn't get up to see how heavy it was. Nothing sounded too crazy out there, maybe we were on the tip of the storm...
We drove through the one a few days before that, and it was madness. Never seen it rain that hard.
A south african guy was struck and killed by lightning last night too near Stavley.
Millrise got pummeled. The girlfriend was worried about hail damage to her car so I had to drive into the parkade. Water and hail were completely inundating the road and gutter. There was ankle deep water at the drivers side of the car. The storm drain right beside her car couldn't handle all the water. It only lasted about 5-10 minutes, but we got a sizeable build up of hail on our balcony and I could barely see the other half of the building across the court yard.
Issued at 1:39 PM MDT Wednesday 28 July 2010
Summary
Severe thunderstorms possible this afternoon and this evening. This is an alert to the potential development of severe thunderstorms with large hail and damaging winds. Monitor weather conditions..Listen for updated statements. If threatening weather approaches take immediate safety precautions.
Details
A warm and humid airmass over the province today has the potential to produce short lived, but intense thunderstorms this afternoon and this evening. Storms south of Calgary have the potential to be longer lived. These storms will develop along the foothills and slowly move eastward. The main concerns with these storms are marble to quarter sized hail, brief heavy downpours, and strong gusty winds.
The red circles are forecasted storms blue circles are current storms they are right under the red circles right now., the number represents the peak of the clouds in KM's. pay no attention top the left with all the numbers its just from the clouds going over the mountains. I believe the lines that appears represent flights of the seeders, you can see a few in front of the storms.