Big Hailer - Calgary AB to Gliechen AB - July 23 2020 — Dan Madden

Published on June 23, 2020

You could tell it was an unstable day, one because of the models and two because of the early morning heat with high dews.

As soon as I got off work, I raced to one of my favorite spots on top of Stoney trail, to see a big shelf start forming.

Usually I play it a little loose when chasing these storms because the biggest hail I usually see is a bout nickel to quarter if that. But as the Westerly hooked and starting pushing it off the foothills, it quickly became an inflow dominant storm. Creating a significant overshooting top.

This was a bit of a problem as I usually chase storms and I rarely get chased by one. Heading east on Hwy 22 ahead of the fast moving leading edge, another chaser reported softballs being chucked at his vehicle on the edge of town. Finding out that the sample size was this large made me quickly realize my house was in the path of this storm in Calgary.

As soon as the storm went outflow dominant again, we decided to punch the outer edge of the storm and head back for a damage assessment.

Dan Madden

Edmonton AB born storm chaser, I have been intrigued by weather at a very young age. Even before I witnessed one of the largest most deadly Tornado's in Canada. The 1987 Edmonton Tornado made an impact in my life I will forever remember. We moved to Calgary right after the 1988 winter olympics. Check out these rare photos here ---> Edmonton Tornado By the age of 18 and when I finally got my drivers license and a car, I would start little trips to the outskirts of the city and check out CG strikes. Once they started adding public radar data and when I got Internet (haha dated), I would then start checking out storms further from the city as well every once in awhile. Fast forward to 2012, I started to chase storms old school style by printing numerical charts and checking out targeted areas. While also working on my new hobby of landscape photography, which I was still green at. Mainly watching a bunch of good lightning storms that year and failing to capture any, my co-worker informed me of a storm chase community that was based around Alberta. 2013 was the year I actually set out to capture real active weather. To which I got my first Supercell in Southern Alberta. I also learned how to properly capture lightning. Come 2014 Ronnie of Twisted Chasers picked me up as one of their chasers. Since then I have documented many different types of weather phenomenon in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Observing 3 tornadoes in that time. Assistant team leader of Twisted Chasers, based out of Red Deer AB.

Big Hailer – Calgary AB to Gliechen AB – July 23 2020

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