Pack an umbrella along with that bear spray, it could be a boomer of a summer in the mountain national parks for Canada 150.
Accuweather鈥檚 Canadian weather specialist Brett Anderson said earlier this week that his data is pointing toward some dark and stormy nights in the Rockies this summer.
Meteorologists like Anderson are expecting temperatures above normal across the Prairies thanks to sustained high pressure in the region. They believe the pressure will detour storms coming off the Pacific Ocean northward into Alaska, which will in turn displace cold arctic air and push it east toward Quebec and Ontario, which are expected to be cooler and stormier than usual in June, July and August.
鈥淲hen you see higher pressure it tends to be drier and that鈥檚 what we expect across most of the province, actually well below normal precipitation levels, which could promote drought conditions across much of the province for the summer,鈥� Anderson explained.
鈥淭he one exception to that is the mountains where I think there will be more thunderstorms than usual in July and August.鈥�
He said moisture from the U.S. Midwest could travel north and get 鈥渢rapped鈥� under the massive high-pressure areas expected to hang over the region. This won鈥檛 be constant, but it could be frequent.
鈥淲hen it does, typically we see thunderstorms mainly firing up across the mountains,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 move much and rain can be locally heavy at times, and we also see more lightning than usual.鈥�
Speaking as Fort McMurray residents marked the one-year anniversary of the blaze that devastated that city last summer, he said the wildfire season would be tricky to forecast until at least June but looking at temperature and rain projections, it鈥檚 reasonable to expect a higher risk in the northern reaches of British Columbia and Alberta.
鈥淪oil moisture across the southern part of province is still in pretty good shape.鈥�
The forecast of a volatile summer in the Rockies could put the Jasper SkyTram鈥檚 upgraded weather gear through its paces.
After an up and down winter at Marmot Basin, Jasper SkyTram general manager Todd Noble is hoping calmer skies will be the norm for the rest of the season.
In recent years, they鈥檝e spent more than $1 million on upgrades to help predict the weather, including a new wind meter and satellite based lightning detection system.
鈥淚t allows us to operate as safely as possible,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e had the new system for a couple of seasons now. It鈥檚 proven quite accurate for cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning detection.鈥�
In the old days, the tram workers would double as wet fingers, calling in storms they spotted from the top down to supervisors at the base.
鈥淲e would do percentages within the various mountain ranges, now we just go to the computer and read what it is telling us,鈥� Noble said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e still the ones deciding, but we really have a more sophisticated analysis now.鈥�
Craig Gilbert
[email protected]
