Extreme Weather In Calgary
By Elizabeth Warwick, Operations Manager
Calgarians are no strangers to extreme and rapidly changing weather conditions. On June 13, 2020, however, the city experienced a particularly severe thunderstorm with heavy rain, strong winds, and tennis ball-sized hail.
In some areas. the wind gusts were up to 100 km/h, with multiple reports of tornadoes near the city. Although the storm only lasted approximately two hours, it resulted in significant property damage throughout areas of the city, including smashed-out car windshields, damaged home exteriors, major flooding, and electrical issues. The estimated total costs for the damages are near $1 billion.
As you can imagine, a severe storm such as this has significant impact on airport operations, and our ASP security team reacted quickly to assist airport operations personnel. A special thank you to the SOC Operators, Airside Patrollers and Supervisors who were given additional duties during the storm and in the recovery period which followed. They all went above and beyond to assist while equipment was repaired, and operations returned to normal.