We actually covered the Alberta floods in my Geography class for the section on floods.Canmore, the hardest hit city, got over 110 mm of rain in 1 day, and about 200 mm in a 2 day span, that's lot even for the south coast of BC, and Alberta is supposed to be in the rainshadow of the Rockies. In this case the storm came in from the opposite direction to the normal west-east track, going east-west instead, and on top of that, got stalled by a high pressure area to the north, and another storm to the west, over BC.
I agree.when real disaster hits, you see what is important and what is not.. a means of survival for all your family members.. both hairless ape and fuzzy beast alike
One would think so, but here, we have many huge rivers and plenty of natural drainage. To get a flood in BC it pretty mush takes 3 conditions to be met:considering how much rain we usually get in BC I'm shocked it hasn't happened here
1- unusually large snow pack in the mountains and interior
2- unusually cool spring
3- about 2 weeks of hot weather around late May/early June
If all 3 are present in sufficient quantities we will likely get wide spread flooding, if not, we won't.
In the north/interior, a couple of other things can sometimes cause flooding as well, and ice jam in a river or a glacial lake being held back by ice that suddenly give way and all that water comes flooding down in a flash flood. These can be either on the surface, or hidden under a glacier and if hidden, can strike without warning.
A more real danger in BC is Avalanches, especially with all those big mountains, steep slopes and huge snowpacks that build up over the winter.