Westerly winds of 70 km/h blew across town late yesterday, breaking tree branches and sending garbage carts wheeling down streets far from home.
Peak wind speeds were recorded around midnight last night, with gusts reaching up to 91 km/h. Further south in the province, wind gusts of up to 148 km/h were reported, leading to broken branches, downed trees and causing power outages in some areas.
Kyle Fougere, meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said whenever there are strong winds forecasted or warnings in place, it's important for homeowners to try and secure loose objects outside their residence as much as possible.
"Think about items around your home that can become loose and fly, either damaging your property or others as well," he said.
Strong winds can also lead to vehicles tipping over on the highway, especially larger vehicles such as semi trucks or trailers.
A ridge of high pressure has been persisting over much of southern Alberta over the past few weeks, leading to warmer and drier than usual conditions for this time of year, according to Fougere.
"When you have these westerly winds move down, they warm as they descend coming down the mountains," he said. "And so they certainly play a part in the warm temperatures we've seen this fall."
Yesterday's event, Fougere said, was not unlike how a Chinook is formed - it just brought stronger winds.
"It's what we call a down-slope windstorm," he explained. "The warm wind descends very quickly down the strong terrain, so it affected the areas just east of the high terrain of the Mountain Park. That's why areas like Cochrane, down along Highway 22 towards Lethbridge and down to Waterton Park were the worst impacted, because of these down-slope winds in the system."
Unlike southern parts of the province, Northern Alberta has been experiencing storms that have brought on colder weather and precipitation.
"There has been a strong gradient of temperature across the province, where the South has been warm and the northern parts have been quite a bit colder," Fougere said.
That's all expected to change after today.
"We're gonna see the biggest changes now that the system has gone through," said Fougere. "Northerly winds are going to come in and it's going to drag some colder air down. We're going to get back towards what's more seasonal for this time of year here in December moving forward, and it is likely that we are going to see some more snow in the area."
In response to yesterday's wind, the Cochrane Eco Centre made a Facebook post asking residents who had an extra waste collection bin turn up in or around their yards, to call the waste and recycling hotline at 403-851-2277 so they can help return any lost bins to their rightful owners.
Outages from downed power lines were also reported in Morley, leading to school closures in the community. Power outages were also reported to have affected parts of Bragg Creek, Redwood Meadows and Tsuu T'ina Nation.
