Torrential rains in mid-July flooded many cars parked near the Southland C-Train Station in Calgary. The city got a total of eight dry days the whole month. We see a parking lot that looks like a lake with water rising to just above the top of the wheels on the cars, which don't appear they will be going anywhere any time soon.

Torrential rains in mid-July flooded many cars parked near the Southland C-Train Station in Calgary. The city got a total of eight dry days the whole month.
Photo Credit: CBC / Bob Clark

After a very tough winter, things not much better in Alberta

You wonder when the the people of Alberta will throw up collective hands and delare “No Mas!”

It’s been a tough year.

 Already grappling with the after-effects of last spring's wildfire, residents of Fort McMurray, faced new problems on the last Saturday of July when 85 millimetres of rain fell in two hours. We see two people in a red canoe paddling down a residential street. A white SUV sits in a driveway behind them.
Already grappling with the after-effects of last spring’s wildfire, residents of Fort McMurray, faced new problems on the last Saturday of July when 85 millimetres of rain fell in two hours. © cbc.ca

Already suffering from a giant plunge in oil prices leading to widespread unemployment, the entire population of the northern city of Fort McMurray– 90,000 people–had to flee in the face of a gigantic, raging wildfire.

Less than two months after residents were allowed to return home, the city was forced to activate its emergency operations centre again last weekend when 85 millimetres of rain fell in two hours, prompting wide-spread flooding.

Just another episode in Alberta’s summer from hell–a summer marked by tornadoes, wind, hail, thunderstorms and often unbearable humidity

Calgary, for example, received 206 millimetres of rain–the most since 1927–and there were 19 thunderstorms on top of it.

And that was just July, when the city got a grand total of eight dry days.

Environment Canada’s senior climatologist, David Phillips, says nobody’s had it worse than Alberta when it comes to bad weather this summer.

I spoke with Phillips and asked him what the heck is going on.

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