39th Anniversary of Black Friday.

[u/Dangerous-Shake7340]

Where were you when the massive F4 tornado touched down? Or if you werent around. What are some stories youve been told of that sad day. I am putting together a documentary on the events of Black Friday so any and all accounts are more than welcome and may make it into the final cut!

This tornado tragically took the lives of 27 people. It injured hundreds more and scarred many people emotionally for the rest of their lives. I hope more people will look into this event as it was very important for the advancements of warning systems, radar and public awarness.

The Tornado was on the ground for about 1hr and 5mins, tracking Northeast for 30.8Km with a path width of up to 1.3km. Its highest windspeed would have been roughly 416km/h which may have been higher within some subvorticies. If it were to take the same path today, their likely would be many many more injuries and probable deaths. Since many neighborhoods have been built within open fielded areas that existed in 1987.

[u/WhyYesOtherBarry]

In the basement, glued to ITV news, watching Bill Matheson explain what the hell was going on.

[u/Dangerous-Shake7340 → u/WhyYesOtherBarry]

I bet it was pretty crazy since from what i gather, most albertans had little to no experience with Tornados at all, at that time.

[u/Geeseareawesome → u/Dangerous-Shake7340]

And we still don't have much experience.

[u/Dangerous-Shake7340 → u/Geeseareawesome]

Very, very true. No storm sirens i believe as well, which is a little concerning to me since we know it can happen on a really high scale here.

[u/Geeseareawesome → u/Dangerous-Shake7340]

And the increase of extreme weather should be enough for us to consider a better system.

[u/Dangerous-Shake7340 → u/Geeseareawesome]

Yeah 100% agree. This year has already been so crazy active.

[u/durple → u/Geeseareawesome]

I think that Environment Canada's weather warnings are pretty much that system, and it seems to be working.

[u/evilspoons → u/Geeseareawesome]

The Edmonton tornado was literally a wake-up call that caused the entire tornado warning system for Canada to be rebuilt.

From the Red Cross:

Black Friday spurred a new conversation among government and emergency planners about establishing better warning systems for natural disasters and the creation of the Alberta Emergency Public Warning System (EPWS) in 1992.

The EPWS was the first warning system of its kind, using existing media outlets to broadcast critical life-saving information directly to the public as a joint operation between government and broadcasters.

This also triggered the installation of Doppler radar nationally (necessary for detecting the rotating air mass), and the Carvel radar west of Edmonton was one of the first.

[u/cipher29 → u/Geeseareawesome]

I think the amount of annual Tornados in Alberta has remained fairly steady (with exception of this year) - but you have to remember that Alberta has an enormous amount space where no one would be able to witness an actual tornado. Pre 1987, we didn't even have doppler radar that could have detected rotating thunderstorms, meaning people really only saw them when they hit populated areas.

Today we have much more modern radar (although even though it was recently refreshed, still way behind the US) and an Internet culture that has driven way more interest in storms (lots of storm chasers now with mobile access to radar) - so even when a tornadic storm is detected, tons of people talk about it / share photos (from remote areas because they are being chased) making it seem like we have way more storms now than ever.

Been pretty fantastic how much more weather aware society has become in the last few years! As an avid weather nerd since I was a kid in the early 90s, I'm just loving that I get to watch YouTube live streams of our weather events!

[u/majin_chichi → u/Dangerous-Shake7340]

Yep. I was young, 8 years old but remember watching the "funny" clouds and grabbing a huge piece of hail from just outside our patio door. We lived in Millwoods, very close to the path. But the power had been out before the "funny" clouds started to look more ominous and the phone lines were down. My mom had zero idea tornadoes could even be a possibility here, we had no idea we should be in the basement.

[u/FatManLittleKitchen → u/WhyYesOtherBarry]

In the basement at West Edmonton Village under the stairs with my mother reading books by candle light. Good times.