Alberta Storm Chaser Seeks to ‘Help People Understand How Storms Work’

The Didsbury tornado on Canada Day caused extensive damage to multiple properties

A powerful EF4 tornado that ripped through the Didsbury, Alta., region at speeds of up to 275 km/hour on July 1, 2023. Courtesy of Tom Graham/@Washed_Up on Twitter

Alberta storm chaser Tom Graham still remembers the worst tornado in the province’s history, from 36 years ago when he was a child in elementary school.

He was on summer vacation, visiting the newly opened wave pool and waterpark at West Edmonton Mall, when a powerful F4 tornado tore through east Edmonton and the surrounding area, killing over two dozen people.

The “Black Friday” tornado, as it became known, was one of seven tornadoes that day, July 31, 1987, and easily the most violent the province had ever experienced.

Alberta Storm Chaser Tom Graham took photographs of the powerful F4 tornado that ripped through the Didsbury region at speeds of up to 275 km/hour, on July 1, 2023. Courtesy of Tom Graham/@Washed_Up on Twitter

It was after that infamous tornado that Graham became interested in storms, and once he got his driver’s licence, he began chasing them in earnest.

Nearly four decades later, when another F4 tornado touched down in Alberta, this time in Didsbury on Canada Day, Graham was there, chasing it and taking photographs.

“I’ve always been interested in weather,” he told The Epoch Times. “As soon as I got my licence I tried getting close to storms—even though I didn’t really know what I was doing—to see the lightning and experience the crazy winds, hail.”

Graham works as a Red Seal millwright by day and volunteers as a weather watcher for Environment Canada in his off time. He looks at weather forecast models and does his own forecast, then heads out early to watch various storms as they fire up, so that he can observe and report. He also provides snow measurements in the Kanasaskis region for Environment Canada during the winter months.

Tom Graham, of Kananaskis, Alta., experienced a tornado as a child in Edmonton in 1987. Now in his 40s, he works a volunteer weather watcher for Environment Canada and a storm chaser in his free time. (Courtesy of Tom Graham/@Washed_Up on Twitter).

Extensive Damage

On July 1, the day the Didsbury tornado hit, Graham jumped in his storm-chasing vehicle—a 2001 lifted Dodge Ram Cummins with heavy-duty off-road 35-inch tires—and drove an hour and a half from his home in Kananaskis to the area roughly an hour north of Calgary. He was just in time to see the 275-kilometre-an-hour tornado tear through Alberta’s Mountain View County, destroying everything in its path.

Graham and a friend took photos from a safe distance as the tornado ravaged 15 kilometres of land between Didsbury and Carstairs in just 30 minutes, earning an EF4 rating on the enhanced Fujita scale. As with the original Fujita scale for measuring the intensity of wind damage, the enhanced scale is a six-point scale that goes from zero, weakest, to five, strongest.

The tornado caused extensive damage to multiple properties, destroying a number of homes and farm buildings. It caused significant damage to trees, power poles, and vehicles. Several dozen farm animals were killed. Thankfully, there were no human fatalities.

Environment Canada said the tornado caused damage to 12 homes, three of which were destroyed and four left uninhabitable.

As he was chasing the storm, Graham was watching the radar as the storm started to drop some hail and change colour.

“This usually means it’s turning into a supercell capable of producing a tornado,” he said. “It was greyish blue, went darker then brown once it picked up the dirt. I backed off at its widest because we couldn’t see the tornado motion.”

He said that in order to stay safe, the duo changed direction, drove east a few kilometres, and then went north for the best view of the storm,  They watched as the funnel developed and then touched down on the ground, officially becoming a tornado.

Alberta storm chaser Tom Graham chases storms in a 2001 lifted Dodge Ram Cummins with heavy-duty, off-road 35-inch tires. Courtesy of Tom Graham/@Washed_Up on Twitter

Supercell Tornado

Weather experts described the July 1 tornado as the most powerful to rip through the province since Black Friday in 1987.

“I’ve been chasing storms for over 15 years, and this was the biggest, most violent tornado I’ve ever witnessed,” said Graham.

“The tornado grew so fast once it hit the warm moist air. Once it hit the ground it just kept getting bigger.” He said humidity was a large factor in the development of the tornado.

“It’s food for a supercell. … A supercell tornado needs a hot humid environment to form. Only about one in one million supercells will produce a tornado,” he says.

“There was a ton of turbulence as the supercell was rotating. Once the tornado formed, there was an incredible amount of turbulence surrounding the tornado and the rotating wall cloud that it was spawned from. Tornado genesis is always incredible to see, never the same twice.”

In the case of the deadly Edmonton twister on July 31, 1987, it swirled around for more than an hour, reaching wind speeds as high as 418 km/hour and travelling more than 30 kilometres. Besides tearing up everything in its path, the storm generated hail the size of tennis balls and reached a funnel base one kilometre wide.

That single tornado caused $332 million worth of property damage, left hundreds of people homeless, and devastated a trailer park just east of the city. The cost to human life was high, with 600 people injured and 27 killed.

Those were the days before cellphones and social media, when people had to listen to the radio or watch television to get the news and weather.

“The mall announced it over the PA system, that a tornado had touched down, but they said we were safe in the wave pool,” Graham recalls.

Photo showing some of the damage caused by a powerful EF4 tornado that ripped through the Didsbury, Alberta, region at speeds of up to 275 km/hour, on July 1, 2023. Courtesy of Tom Graham/@Washed_Up on Twitter

Risks

Graham, who grew up on a farm in Manitoba, acknowledges that there is some danger to storm chasing, which he regularly does in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, and said he is especially concerned about not letting his vehicle get hit with hail.

“Tornado storms are called right movers for a good reason. They spin counterclockwise 95 percent of the time—cyclonic,” he said. He is careful to position himself below the storm so he can see what is happening, but not be in its path.

Where he lives in Kananaskis is known as “the corridor for storms in Alberta,” which he says runs from Waterton to Drayton Valley. These days, Graham said, he only chases the storms that he thinks “are the best of what can be seen.”

The best, safest storm to chase is one moving west to east in a very straight line, he said.

“It’s safe to get close as long as you know exactly where you are in regards to the tornado. S.W. is the safest to get close usually.”

Photo of the Didsbury tornado on July 1, 2023. Courtesy of Tom Graham/@Washed_Up on Twitter

Graham said the closest he will get to one of these storms is about 400 metres. “There’s always a risk of flying debris,” he said, noting that the shroud of dirt and dust that goes along with a tornado makes it hard to see.

As to why he has picked up such an unusual interest, driving toward storms that other people would flee from, he said, “I want to help people understand how storms work. Being able to forecast a storm and then see the result is a personal high.”