Lacombe Days is only a few more days away and with most of the festivities being held outdoors, you might be wondering what you can expect from the weather.  

Meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, Sara Hoffman says the next few days will be very typical July weather for Lacombe and area.  

“I would call this pretty typical summer weather. We've got some hot sunny days mixed in with some stormy days, so you know today we're looking at a really hot day 28°C is their forecast high. Tomorrow, we're looking at a return to more normal temperatures. 23°C is normal for this time of year for Lacombe and so we're looking at more normal temperatures and some potential for some stormy conditions,” explained Hoffman.  

She noted that there is a potential for storms to build on Wednesday and then for hot weather to return on Thursday and Friday.  

“On the really hot days we're not really expecting a thunderstorm and then on the days in between we'll probably expect a storm,” she added.  

However, even if there is no storm expected hot weather can still be a risk to our safety.  

“No one is immune to the heat and you know quite often we hear those stories about 25-year-old on the golf course, having a heat illness. No one is immune from the heat. If you're going to be out in the sun, it'll be important to try and find pockets of shade and stay hydrated. By stay hydrated, I mean drink clear non-caffeinated, non-alcoholic liquid or at least mix it in if you're drinking throughout the day and to really monitor your signs and symptoms,” explained Hoffman.  

Over the course of the summer, the Lacombe area has seen quite a bit of rain.  

“150.4 millimeters [of rain] was reported in June, which if we compare it, we only have normals from Red Deer—but if we compare that to the normals for June for Red Deer of 94 millimeters, it was quite a wet June. It was well above normal for the amount of precipitation and if we compare it to red deer record, it was the 8th wettest June on record with 109 years of data,” explained Hoffman.  

Of course, the other notable weather event was the tornado that took place near Sundre. Hoffman says we can expect more information on that in the coming days.  

“They were doing an investigation and actually I was part of that team that went out to investigate. We have collected a lot of data. We are just combing through now to make sure that we’re making the most complete and sound rating that we can. At this time, we're not planning to issue the rating today, but we're hoping by the end of the week,” she explained.