If you don’t live in Alberta you probably think that this is an exaggeration when Albertans say “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.” or something to that effect. Some people will say ten minutes, or some different variation of the phrase. It really is true though. I mean it doesn’t happen like that all the time.

In the last couple weeks here in Southern Alberta is has been, more or less, true to say that the weather changes in a matter of minutes. We’ve been getting some really wacked out weather lately Tornadoes and freakish thunderstorms.

On Tuesday I worked 5:00-9:30. When I drove to Lethbridge it was hot and sunny. My car said it was around 30 degrees (that’s in Celsius). It went up and down a bit as I drove on the highway pasts the fields or crops and past the small towns but it stayed within plus or minus two degrees.

Then an hour or so later I was up at the front of the store working cash and I looked out the window and it had gotten really dark. Just so you know, this wasn’t even the first storm in the past couple weeks, we had a few before this. It was really windy and it started to rain a little. Then we started to hear it falling on the roof and the power flickered a little bit. We all looked outside (the other staff who were at the front and the customers) and there was huge hail falling. Remember, it had been 30 degree above 0 before this. The hail had to be about quarter to loonie (Canadian one dollar coin) sized. There were some areas that got golf ball sized hail that same day.

The hail was melting pretty fast as it was still sort of warm out. Some of us went outside and we were watching the hail. There were some guys doing some construction in the parking lot and they had all gotten inside their trucks and tractors. It was really weird. Then 5-10 minutes later it stopped. It was still dark and windy but the storm started moving away. It didn’t last very long.

When I left work that night at 9:30 you could see the sky again, all pink and purple in the sunset. There were still some clouds in the sky but they were harmless.

As I was driving back to Taber and the sun was setting, there wasn’t much happening in the sky in the way of storms. As I got closer to Taber, about where the speed limit changes from 110Km/h to 80km/h I noticed some flashing lights closer to town. I though to myself, Hmm…I wonder what those are about. Car accident maybe. And then I just forgot about it and went back to listening to whatever music I was listening to. I think it may have been Skillet at the time. But I’m not sure. It was one of my mix CDs that I made for the car. When I got closer to town, now where the speed limit drops from 80km/h to 50km/h, I noticed that the town was dark. I couldn’t tell what the flashing lights were yet though.

Then my phone rang. It was my dad. He told me the power had been out for about 4 hours (I think that’s what he said. My cell phone loses quality when I’m in Taber) and trees had been knocked down in the storm. As I drove through Taber, still on the highway, people were conducting traffic in the inter sections with lights and none of the buildings looked like they had any life in them. Keep in mind it’s 10:00 now and the sun has just set, but there is still a bit of light in the sky. I get home and it’s dark and kind of freaky looking.

The power came back on around 10:30.

Later we found out that the winds had been measured at up to and maybe over 120km/h around the area.

We have a farm behind us and he had a large tree get blown over and his younger trees had been bent and some had been blown right over as well.

There had been farms around our area who had lots of damage done to their crops and equipment. One farm had its grain bins lifted from their concrete bases and thrown 500 feet or more and smushed.

Apparently Wal-Mart went into lock down for about an hour. Customers were told a tornado had touched down and they had to stay in the store.

A hanger at the Taber airport had been flipped over.

Trees and gravestones were overturned at the cemetery in Taber.

It was later reported on the news that a tornado touched down north of Vulcan. There was also damage in small towns all across Southeastern Alberta.

Hows that for crazy? It was all gone and over with not long after. The storm that passed over was not very large but it did a lot of damage. That wasn’t the last one either. There have been more small storms since then.

Even last night. My dad and I were out watching the clouds move last night. They looked pretty freaky. I took some pictures and video but I haven’t put them on my computer yet. It rains a little bit and there was a lot of wind but that was about it. There was definitely rotation in the clouds but no major funnels or anything. My dad was convince we would get a tornado.

The weirdest thing about the storm last night was that the south edge of it didn’t go very far. It came in from the north but it was like it got stuck. There were about 4 layers of clouds that were all moving in different directions at different speeds but the bottom edge of it was right over our backyard (which is the south side of our house). The more southwestern part of the storm seems to stay in the same spot for an hour. The southeastern part of the storm had gone farther south and then came back north and then the whole thing moved east. It was really strange. This was over a period of about 2 hours but I couldn’t figure it out. It was so weird.

Anyways, that’s my story for the day. Last I looked today it’s bright and sunny. My dad went golfing.