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The Board is always on the look out for new members. It’s not much work, but it’s very rewarding. We meet 6-7 times per year, get to see the inner workings of Alberta Parks, help enrich the lives of hundreds of volunteers each year, and make a huge difference to the trails we know you love. If you have expertise in accounting, fundraising, trail care (including volunteering with us), communications, human resources, strategic planning, or other skills you think would be useful, we would love to talk. Contact me at Derek.a.ryder@gmail.com

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Part 2 in a series by Derek Ryder, Director of Communications

Last month, I tried to help you understand why mountain weather forecasting is a challenge, and that while EnviroCan is certainly up to that challenge, they don’t take it on and issue forecasts for places like Upper Kananaskis Lake or Burstall Pass. So who does “good” forecasting for the mountains?

First, realize that virtually all weather forecasts are model driven. A good forecast for here requires detailed terrain models. Second, you all know that the terrain changes in very short distances. So a good model has fine resolution. The following are what I have found to be the most comprehensive and accurate sources of forecasts and raw data for Kananaskis, all of which have high resolution and detailed terrain models built in. All the examples I will show will be the data for a hypothetical trip that I would take up to Rawson Lake and Sarrail Ridge above the lake. The trailhead start is at 1,720 m, the lake is 2,025 m, and the ridge above the lake is 2,400 m.

SpotWX

If you want to look at the raw data that goes into the EnviroCan forecast (and many other forecast models), look no further than SpotWX.com. My brother the statistician will tell you that the BEST WAY to figure out what’s going to happen is to look at a LOT of models, look at where they agree and disagree, and decide for yourself. SpotWX.com lets you do that, and a whole lot more. Drop a pin anywhere on the planet and you can see the raw modeling forecasts for that point. There are between 8 and 20 forecasts available of varying resolution, depending on where you are looking. There are short-term and long-term models from Environment Canada and the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (in the US, NOAA collects the data and does the analysis and forecasting, the National Weather Service disseminates it. NOAA is the parent agency of the NWS).

The Canadian HRDPS (High Resolution Deterministic Prediction System) forecast is the highest resolution, making forecasts for 2.5 sq. km. areas, and it goes out 48 hrs from when the model was run – perfect for planning tomorrow’s adventure. I dropped the spot pin on the Upper Kan parking lot, and you can see the size of the model grid cell in green in the upper right picture. The forecast that comes up says that it’s for an elevation of 1,973 m, so about half way between the start and Rawson Lake. The forecast provides hourly data for temperature, dewpoint, relative humidity, precipitation, cloud percentage, wind speed & direction, and then winds “aloft” from 20 m to 120 m above ground.

If you click in the two grid cells to the west & southwest, their elevations are 2,095 m (basically the level of Rawson Lake) and 2,361 m (basically the ridge height). So with these three forecasts, you’re going to get a great idea of how things will change with elevation.

The US HRRR forecast (High Resolution Rapid Refresh) is also fine resolution with a 3 sq. km grid, but only goes out 18 hrs. The other forecasts get very large grid cells indeed (the grid cell for the Canadian GEPS forecast covers half of K-Country, for example) so aren’t useful for planning tomorrow -- but maybe helpful for getting a general idea of what will happen later in the week.

Mountain-Forecast.Com

Mountain-Forecast.com is generated out of the UK. They have a sister site called Snow-Forecast that is tied to downhill skiing areas which I also reference, and another called Surf-Forecast which I look at when I go to Maui. All of their forecasts are purely computer modeled, though with a detailed terrain model built in (which EnviroCan does not use). However, what sets them apart is that their forecasts are tuned to mountain areas. I have followed them for years. They have mountain specific forecasts for over 100 individual mountains in Kananaskis.

Mountain-Forecast breaks the day down into forecasts for 2 and 8 hour increments, and the 8 hr forecast is free (4 AM – noon, noon- 8 PM, 8 PM to 4 AM). They re-run their models 3 times a day, so they change their forecasts a lot. They have pretty simple graphics that are easy to scan and understand. You can pay to become a member and access hourly forecasts for 3 days and other stuff, but I find the free 6 day forecasts good enough.

They don’t have a forecast for Rawson or Mt. Sarrail, but they do have a forecast for Mt. Foch next door shown at right. They forecast 4 elevations: 3,194 m (the summit), 2,500 m (about the ridge height), 2,000 m (about Rawson Lake height) and 1,500 m (which makes no sense to me because you can’t get that low in a 20 km radius).

Mountain-Forecast.com is very good but far from perfect:

There are a few more resources that are good sources for weather data and forecasts. Several are particularly good for predicting winter pow days for you skiers out there.

Avalanche.ca

Avalanche.ca has several weather pages with tons of very technical info, and not only is it kept updated in the winter but in the summer as well.

But the best part is that the main page hosts the access to the automated weather stations used by Kananaskis Public Safety. When they work (which is most of the time, actually, though the Black Prince tower snapped in a storm and has been down for a while), you can get live hourly data from places like the Highwood Pass, Aster Lake, Burstall Pass and Burstall parking lot. It’s really good to ground truth SpotWX or Mountain-Weather’s forecasts by comparing it against actual conditions. Highly recommended.

University of Washington

The University of Washington’s School of Meteorology post a stand-alone 72 hr precipitation forecast model run, and you can see it here. I find it better at predicting precipitation than the Mountain-Forecast prediction model, and the displays are better, too (though it SUCKS to use on a mobile device).

Alberta Environment and Parks

Alberta Environment & Parks maintains snow pillows at a few locations in K-Country. These are fully automated stations that provide input to water supply forecasting. The charts they produce are good in the winter to see precipitation events and in the spring to see the melt off pace. They just changed the link to it; now you can find it here by just checking the box next to Snow Pillows on the right.

SnowCast.ca

“New” in the game is SnowCast.ca. I’m not huge fan, but it’s worthy of note. It’s an experimental snow forecasting website focused on the Bow Valley area, from the folks at the University of Saskatchewan. The UofS does a LOT of water supply forecasting, and their main man Dr. John Pomeroy just opened a lab in Canmore. It’s so new I haven’t seen what the displays are like for summer precipitation, though. They basically do advanced analysis of the HRDPS using a hydrological modelling tool. They only forecast precipitation. It’s beyond the scope of this article to talk about Pomeroy’s research (a subject for a future article), but bookmark that site and keep an eye on it.

Snow-Reports.ca

In 2013, a few smart guys in Calgary who liked weather modeling put together Snow-Reports.ca for fun, mining data from the HRDPS forecasts. Pretty sure no one’s been updating anything on the site since 2014 other than the forecasting maps, which I believe are automated. Obviously more winter focused than summer, and again, only focused on precipitation.

WindyTV

The instructors in my recent Hiking Guide course really like Windy.com. Once you can figure out the interface, you have the ability to merge historical actuals with forecast model runs, though only 3 runs are available (unlike SpotWX’s 8-20 models). The displays are much nicer than SpotWX, but the confusing interface makes it hard to get what you want.

Next month in the final part in this series, I’ll look at weather radar.