Schulich engineer teams up with Environment Canada to improve severe weather warnings in Alberta

Images of the devastation of Alberta’s Pine Lake Tornado in July 2000 are etched in the minds of Canadians. Severe weather such as hail, thunderstorms and tornadoes are common this time of year in the Alberta foothills.

Dr. Susan Skone from the Schulich School of Engineering is part of a team of experts who have joined forces for a massive project called the Understanding Severe Thunderstorms and Alberta Boundary Layers Experiment (UNSTABLE).

For the next two weeks, scientists from Environment Canada, universities and the private sector will use aircraft, weather balloons and mobile labs to collect weather data in the foothills.

The ultimate goal is to understand how severe weather develops and to improve the accuracy and timeliness of summertime weather watches and warnings in Alberta.

“This data collection campaign is interesting because weather affects everyone,” said Dr. Susan Skone, associate professor in the Geomatics Engineering Department at the Schulich School of Engineering. “We see severe weather such as hail and thunderstorms develop very often in the month of July. It’s exciting to be involved in a study that could help improve monitoring and forecasting of these events.”

Dr. Skone’s research focuses on satellite navigation and various GPS applications including water vapour estimation for meteorology.

She has donated a number of ground instruments to analyze data during the study. Specialized receivers will interpret signals from GPS satellites. By studying how the signals are affected as they travel through the atmosphere, scientists can determine moisture levels in the air.

“This experiment examines the influence of the part of the earth’s atmosphere that is closest to the ground on severe thunderstorm development,” explained Neil Taylor, an expert on hydrometeorology with Environment Canada. “It will also assess how thunderstorm development is reflected by current measuring systems.”

Severe storms in Alberta have taken 40 lives and caused over $2-billion worth of damage since 1981, according to Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada.

The results from this study are expected to have applications in other parts of Canada.