A multi-scale meteorological dataset of the June 2013 flood in Southern Alberta, Canada

From June 19 to June 22, 2013, intense rainfall and concurrent snowmelt led to devastating floods in the Canadian Rockies, foothills and downstream areas of southern Alberta (Canada). The complexity of the topography in the upper catchments and the presence of snow at high elevations made, among other factors, hydrological forecasting challenging for this extreme event. This dataset contains an ensemble of variables at different resolutions (10, 2.5 and 1 km) that can be used to drive hydrological models during this extreme event. The latest operational version of the Canadian Numerical Weather Prediction model GEM (Global Environmental Multi-scale) was used to recreate the atmospheric conditions during the flooding event. Short-term 12-h forecasts were produced 4 times per day from 18 June 2013 00 UTC to 22 June 2013 12 UTC. Four 6-h quantitative precipitation estimation products were then generated using the Canadian Precipitation Analysis (CaPA) system by varying (i) the station density (especially in the upper parts of the catchments) and (ii) the horizontal resolution of the GEM precipitation background.