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ShareWild skies produce swath of hail reports
By Lana Michelin - Red Deer Advocate
Published: July 11, 2008 6:15 AM
Updated: July 11, 2008 9:01 AM
Pockets of hail from Wednesday night’s thunderstorm caused crop damage from Ponoka to Airdrie.
The Agriculture Financial Services Corporation received about 185 hail damage reports as of noon on Thursday and was expecting more to come in.
“It was a wild storm,” said Carol Simpson, co-ordinator of insurance processing for the AFSC office in Lacombe.
“There were very intriguing skies and cloud formations.”
Simpson believes the Lacombe and Airdrie areas were the worst hit. Each of those regions yielded about 60 damage claims, compared to 25 from Olds and 20 each from Ponoka and Drumheller.
Simpson said storm systems that create pockets of hail over such a wide area are not unusual.
“Sometimes you get these severe storms early in the season, or in September.”
AFSC staff will be assessing the severity of the recent damage over the next few days.
Unlike late-season hail, which can “shatter” crops that are ready to be harvested, there’s the potential for recovery from mid-season hail, depending on the degree of damage.
“We’ll have to wait a certain amount of time and see how severe the damage is.”
Contact Lana Michelin at lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
