Rainfall warnings in southern Alberta expected to drop later Thursday
Posted Jun 19, 2014 8:06 am.
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There’s still several southern Alberta communities under states of local emergency and rainfall warnings, but those could be ending very soon.
The rain system is currently going west into the Foothills and will focus along Highway 2 south of Calgary, so regions along the road remain under warnings, including Okotoks, High River, Claresholm and Fort Macleod.
But Meteorologist David Spence said with up to 20 mms expected for those regions on Thursday, we’re almost in the clear.
“Probably around dinner time or thereabouts, maybe even earlier, and the rain will come to an end, the sun will come out, and while we might see some showers and thundershowers tomorrow afternoon, it’s not going to be significant, so the end is near,” he said.
Even though areas from Fort Macleod west into the Crowsnest Pass have gotten more than 100 mms, there hasn’t been much flooding and that’s also been the case in the hardest hit places, like Westcastle, which has received over 200 mms.
“Those areas are mountainous and the rain tends to run off,” Spence said. “For example, in Claresholm where you’ve had under 100 mms of rain, you’ve had the most flooding because that is picking up a lot of the moisture that is coming from the hills off to the west.”
The Highwood River is expected to peak at approximately 200 cubic metres per second by late Thursday afternoon.
Joan Botkin with the Town of High River said the river used to flood Wallaceville when it hit about 250 cubic metres per second, but they’ve set the bar lower than that for an alert.
“We just want to be extra cautious and make sure that the residents are safe there,” she said.
