Flooding & tornadoes & landslides! Oh My! A look at the extreme weather events of 2022

The year is wrapping up and unsurprisingly it has been an eventful year for weather in central Alberta. Here’s a look at the major weather events that occurred in 2022.  

In the Lacombe area, we actually saw a couple warm days in January.  

“On January the 10th, this year you made it to 8.2 degrees Celsius, breaking the record from 1986,” said Warning Preparedness Meteorologist with Environment Canada, Natalie Hasell.  

Wrapping up winter, Lacombe saw a fairly dry spring followed by a very wet start to June.  

“You had three days of rain or showers on 13th, 14th and 15th (of June). On the 14th we recorded 49.9 milliliters which is a lot of rain in one day. The 13th year was 15.3 milliliters, then the 14th was 49.9 milliliters, and the 15th was 6.9 milliliters,” said Hasell.  

During those days in June, we saw a bit of flooding on the Red Deer River and even a couple of landslides in the Red Deer area. Hasell noted that the amount of precipitation the area saw from June to the end of August was above average overall.  

“Your colder seasons were drier and June typically is a very wet month in prairies, as is July, as can be August. So, what we see here actually does kind of make sense,” said Hasell.  

Other notable weather events in central Alberta 

On July 7, 2022, a tornado touched down in near Bergen. Environment Canada gave the tornado an EF-2 rating. 

On July 18, 2022 a sizable storm also hit the Markerville area causing major damage and injuries at a wedding. 

Not too far from the Lacombe area, an evacuation took place in the Nordegg area on July 20, 2022 due to a wild fire. Parts of Clearwater County were evacuated in response.  

We returned to drier weather in the fall and saw some warm temperatures in September. 

“You broke a record in September the 4th at 32.2 degrees, breaking the record from 1938. It was warm at that time, like for a few days. [On] September 28th you reached 29 degrees Celsius beating the record from 1949,” said Hasell.  

It wasn’t long before we saw cold again in November with another record broken on November 9th of minus 29.9 degrees celsius.  

Overall, Meteorologist, Hasell doesn’t take a lot of stock in record breaking temperatures. She believes the stats show just how large the variability in weather can be in the area.  

“If you're walking home from somewhere tonight, you're not going to care about that little difference. It will be cold if it’s record cold or not. I'd prefer that people just pay attention and dress warmly and avoid being in that situation to begin with,” she added.