Hundreds of Alberta farmers reporting damage following violent hail storm

After finally getting timely spring rains following years of drought, some southern Alberta farmers are now facing massive crop losses. 

Monday night's violent hailstorm, which left behind busted windows and damaged siding in Calgary, also wreaked havoc in rural areas east of the city, including in Vulcan County. 

A significant number of farmers in the county lost their entire harvest to hail damage, according to Deanna Heather, Vulcan County's director of agriculture.

"There's fields you can barely tell what was growing there before because it's such significant damage," said Heather. 

"A lot of producers are going to have very, very little to put in their bins now. It's all going to be insurance claims instead." 

Heather said another hailstorm had passed through the area just days before, on Saturday, knocking over two barns and ruining some farmers' plants.

The Agriculture Financial Services Corporation says at least 200 of their clients have reported damage so far. 

"They have 14 days to report, so that number will continue to grow," said George Kueber, the company's provincial adjusting manager. 

"Hail usually starts coming June-ish, obviously July is probably number one … in many cases that's when crops are the most susceptible. There's not much [farmers] can do." 

Heather Pimiskern, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said the largest hail size report to the agency from the Calgary area was roughly 4.5 centimetres in diameter, which is about the size of a golf ball.

However, she said other regions in southern Alberta, such as the Cochrane Lake area, had up to tennis ball-sized hail.

Barley and pea growers are especially susceptible to suffering damage from large hailstorms when their crops are mature, said Kueber, but it's too early to predict how much the insured losses will total. 

Most producers in Vulcan County are covered against hail damage, according to Heather, but the claims will likely affect the premiums they're paying. 

"You never want to do insurance if you can have a crop go to market instead," she said. 

An area over 120 kilometres long and 12 kilometres wide was hit by hail, according to the Northern Hail Project, a group of hail researchers from Western University. 

Up to 36,000 buildings could have been affected by the storm, with strong winds playing a role in increasing the level of damage, said the group. 

Researchers from the Northern Hail Project are in the process of conducting a forensic-level damage survey.