Edmonton has had a lot of rain (for this area) in the past few days. Yesterday was warm and partially cloudy. Today a big low pressure system walked in and parked itself over the city. Right where I live, we had hail for maybe ten minutes, and the pictures here show the results. The largest hailstone I saw was about the size of a large pea. The center of the storm was in the west side of the city. A friend reports that it hailed off and on for an hour there, with hailstones upto golfball size. There has also been heavy rain in all of this. Also seen were some funnel clouds, although I didn't personally see any. Needless to say, there was lots of road flooding, West Edmonton Mall got some flooding and a roof crash, etc.
As I write this, the system is still out there, but quite a ways west of the city. It might come back, but likely not.
Update: the local TV news last night had more details and pictures. Two small tornados did indeed touch down. Some areas had hail and heavy rain for three hours, totalling upto 70 mm (3 inches) of rain. The city had to bring out snow plows to get rid of a foot of hail in some areas. A small part of the roof of West Edmonton Mall tore open (not really a major collapse), letting in a lot of water. The staff did their best to push all the water onto the skating rink (breaking a couple of the glass sideboards to get a path), but decided to get all the shoppers out of the mall while they were doing it.
The following pictures come via a co-worker. Origin unknown.
