Steve, Paul and Melissa were our heroic forecasters for the day, providing us with all the details from the models. The RAP output suggested that there would be light precipitation for 0100 UTC and 0200 UTC, while the NAM was predicting NE (upslope) winds from 0000 UTC to 0900 UTC. Here at Kananaskis the team decided to rotate throughout the night to check on the radar. At 0700, during my turn to check I noticed what looked to be an upslope event, with precipitation coming from the NE moving SW towards KES. Ida and I headed out to the site shortly after, to anticipate something interesting! Upon arrival we checked the radar and we noticed that it had fizzled out on us - of course! When we were convinced that nothing else would happen we headed back.
Later that day Lucia was the first to arrive to the field at 1750 UTC. What looked to be potential snow on the radar at 1830 UTC turned out to be nothing on site. However it was snowing at Barrier Lake. Ida and I decided to do a carsonde as that was looking to be our only chance to get snowflake pictures of the day. We headed out to Fortress Mountain and arrived at 1830 UTC. We made it to the top, without any transition or sign of snow, but something was brewing in the south, so we decided to wait for it to come our way. At 1925 UTC we started seeing graupel with temperatures at 1.9 C, but with the wind it was hard to collect and the larger graupel would just bounce off the collection pad. I did my best to shield the graupel from bouncing off, but I could only do so much. We did manage to get photos still, though maybe not the best samples, due to the previously mentioned issues. After some pictures and cold toes we left the base of Fortress Mountain at 2041 UTC, happy to have seen something!
Once we arrived at KES, we prepared a balloon launch. We figured it would be best to launch during the storm and not stick to the usual schedule (00 UTC, 03 UTC, 06 UTC, 09 UTC, 12 UTC… etc), as the storm would be short lived. We launched at 0015, with light snow at KES. Pictures were not taken as the snow was melting too quickly with temperatures from 4.2 C to 6 C during the snowfall. By 0040 UTC, there was no longer any snow at KES up until 0500 UTC when we left the site.
Field Observers - Ida, Lucia & Juris
Field instrumentation - MRR, parsivel, geonor, datalogger, manual obs, carsonde (with micro snowflake photography) & one weather balloon launch
- Juris Almonte
Later that day Lucia was the first to arrive to the field at 1750 UTC. What looked to be potential snow on the radar at 1830 UTC turned out to be nothing on site. However it was snowing at Barrier Lake. Ida and I decided to do a carsonde as that was looking to be our only chance to get snowflake pictures of the day. We headed out to Fortress Mountain and arrived at 1830 UTC. We made it to the top, without any transition or sign of snow, but something was brewing in the south, so we decided to wait for it to come our way. At 1925 UTC we started seeing graupel with temperatures at 1.9 C, but with the wind it was hard to collect and the larger graupel would just bounce off the collection pad. I did my best to shield the graupel from bouncing off, but I could only do so much. We did manage to get photos still, though maybe not the best samples, due to the previously mentioned issues. After some pictures and cold toes we left the base of Fortress Mountain at 2041 UTC, happy to have seen something!
Once we arrived at KES, we prepared a balloon launch. We figured it would be best to launch during the storm and not stick to the usual schedule (00 UTC, 03 UTC, 06 UTC, 09 UTC, 12 UTC… etc), as the storm would be short lived. We launched at 0015, with light snow at KES. Pictures were not taken as the snow was melting too quickly with temperatures from 4.2 C to 6 C during the snowfall. By 0040 UTC, there was no longer any snow at KES up until 0500 UTC when we left the site.
Field Observers - Ida, Lucia & Juris
Field instrumentation - MRR, parsivel, geonor, datalogger, manual obs, carsonde (with micro snowflake photography) & one weather balloon launch
- Juris Almonte