As of July 27, Calgary is at its fifth-highest rainfall on record.According to Crawford Luke, a Meteorologist from Environment Canada, the current levels in Calgary recorded this July are 139.6 mm. Luke says the average for the city is usually 65.7 mm. In June, Calgary had 94.4 mm of rain — which Luke says "is less of an anomaly because typically June is the wettest month of the year."."So, in a typical June in Calgary, the average rainfall is 112.7 mm. That's actually a bit less than normal," states Luke.The August rainfall average in Calgary is 53.8 mm.Luke noted Environment Canada's last prediction for the summer months was "a drier than normal summer, including August."But he adds, "Obviously, we just talked about how July's been very wet, though, right? Yeah, I don't know if I'd put a lot of space in that prediction," Luke states..And if there is any prediction to be made in Calgary and Alberta overall it "Seems likely the summer might end up a little on the wet side of normal," Luke speculates.The highest recorded levels of rainfall in Calgary was in 1927 at 245.4 mm.As to why the prior seasonal prediction forecasted drier weather Luke says, "Precipitation forecasts in general are a lot less reliable than temperature forecasts when we look at a seasonal level.""Alberta especially — it seems like seasonal outlooks really tend to struggle."This is because "Alberta is just a tough one in general. Mountains have a pretty big impact on the weather, and models can have a hard time with that sometimes. The other thing is Western Canada in general, you're closer to the Pacific."."But sometimes, if there's a system coming in off of the Pacific Ocean, we might have some satellite data for it, but we don't have a lot of other data because it's out over the ocean.""Whereas, a province like Ontario or Quebec, by the time that system gets to them, it's already passed over BC, Alberta, and the Prairies, and so we've had a lot of data observing what's going to happen," Luke says. Most of Canada's weather data flows from west to east.
