The hailstorm that slammed the Brooks area, southeast of Calgary, on Aug. 20 is expected to cost millions in crop damage alone, according to insurance providers.
The powerful storm sent golf ball-sized hail smashing down and left a large swath of destruction stretching from Alberta to Saskatchewan, with windows smashed, siding ripped from homes, power lines knocked down and crops flattened.
More than 350 hail claims from the storm have already been filed, covering more than 350,000 acres of damage, according to George Kueber, claims adjusting manager for the Agriculture Financial Services Corp. (AFSC), a provincial Crown corporation that insures Alberta farmers.
Researchers from the Canadian Severe Storms Laboratory at Western University in London, Ont., visited the area to inspect the aftermath.
“It started out as a bit of a typical supercell thunderstorm that comes out of the foothills south of Calgary. But quickly transformed into a high wind, big hail producer,” said David Sills, director of the laboratory’s Northern Tornadoes Project.
They used satellite imagery to measure the so-called ‘hail scar,’ showing the path of visible damage to crops and vegetation. The length covered 400 kilometres across, from Brant, Alta., about 100 kilometres southeast of Calgary, to Beechy Provincial Pasture in Saskatchewan, which is about 540 kilometres east of Calgary. The most severe damage stretched 11 kilometres wide from Brooks northward.
The researchers estimate winds reached up to 165 kilometres an hour — equivalent to an EF1 tornado.
Sills said they are still looking for damage reports to gain a fuller understanding of the storm’s impact.
