2022 was an interesting year weather-wise for Alberta and the Airdrie area, with some of the events making Environment Canada's Top Ten Weather Events for 2022.

Things like the Bergen Tornado, extreme cold right before the holidays and the extreme heat during the summer all made the list.

Here is the full list of Environment Canada's Top 10 Weather Events in 2022:

  1. Furious Fiona strikes Eastern Canada.
  2. Billion-dollar derecho rakes across Ontario and Quebec.
  3. Manitoba’s drenching spring.
  4. Return to hot and dry weather under the dome.
  5. Wildfires on two coasts.
  6. A wintery spring in British Columbia (without the flood).
  7. Superstorms track across the Prairies in July.
  8. Montreal was swamped by a humongous rain system.
  9. Record-breaking cold in time for the holidays.
  10. Three weekend January storms stress Atlantic Canada.

Coming in at number seven were the four tornadoes that wreaked havoc through the prairies, these storms also included the Tornado outside of Airdrie by Bergen.

On the afternoon of July 7, the first severe super thunderstorm developed over central and southern Alberta. An EF-2 tornado with wind speeds between 180 and 190 km/h emerged and touched down in Bergen, before pounding parts of Airdrie and Calgary with heavy rain, marble-sized hail and heavy wind gusts.

The tornado damaged multiple homes west of Olds but did not hurt anybody. 

The next day brought a repeat performance to much of the same region, with golf-ball size hail and four tornadoes in parts of Saskatchewan near Paynton and Blaine Lake on July 8, followed on July 9 by a small, non-destructive tornado near Argyle, Manitoba.

When it comes to number four on the list, summer 2022 was the third warmest Canadian summer on record.

With temperatures hitting 38°C in the southern part of Alberta and Saskatchewan, August was one of the hottest months on record

In western and northern Canada, the combination of record-long heat and dryness had enormous impacts on almost every aspect of the economy and the environment. The warmth and dryness kept the wildfire season active for up to nine weeks longer than normal.

Number 9 was the extreme cold we saw right during the holidays. Daytime highs on the prairies scraped the upper 20s and 30s. Wind chills between -40 and -55 were seen from British Columbia to Northern Ontario.

The Airdrie area reached -31 without the wind chill.

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