Hailstone
Last month cut off air and hail in Southern Alberta Preary
On August 20, 2025, a 150-kilometer per hour of gust crops and grass and land covered. The storm slipped from the south of Calgary to Suskechewan, which affects the insured crops in about 425,000 acres, as well as the pasture and native grasslands.
The most intensive region of the storm – a type of epicator that was dragged for hundreds of kilometers – overtaken a “Ole scar”, which could be seen in satellite images published by US Space Agency NASA.
A patchwork of green colors, representing crops, grasses and bunches of trees, is replaced by a spot measuring about 15 kilometers wide and 200 km long.
It begins near the vulcan to the south of Calgary, and reflects the worst damage concentrated to the north of the Brooks, where the owners and agricultural producers of the acre demolished the siding of the house to the nail points. The corn stalks tear in half. Pivots of irrigation overturned. Asphalt ringworm was bare.
Researchers at the North Ole Project at Western University later studied the effects of the storm on the ground. This concluded the heaviest damage, “The worst NHP has documented to date,” it occurred over 22 kilometers north of Brooks.
“The damage to the crop was in this health, in which grain crops were leveled and the corn was mostly left as bare stalks,” it reads. “Even the areas of grasslands were regretted, in which the root system of the grass was exposed and the native bushes were rejected on their western -faceted sides.”
Such storms in southern Alberta are not uncommon.
Freelance Storm Chaser Kyle is listed by Britain 12 examples “Hell Scars” on its website that appears in the province since 2000.
Cleaning is going on
Two weeks later, people who live and work with the worst hit bands are completing the cleaning.
Military, near Alta, own Garald Torkelson Farms, and a landscape company in Brooks, about 15 kilometers south.
He was one of the 100 volunteers of the Menonite Church congregation, who came out to clean the yard and Dhona debris in the days after the storm. While moving from Ekrej to the farm yard, they removed the truck load of leaves and dropped the trees.
He said, “I have seen a lot of hail damage over the years, but I have not seen anything like that,” he said, he does not think many damaged trees will live till the next spring.
“My yard looks like the moon.”
While they wait for insurance adjustments, farmers who can work a dozen or more kilometers blocks, still have to take crop crops that avoid the worst damage. Whatever is left on the badly damaged fields will be cut or dropped for livestock feed.
For the Ranchers, the air exposed the systems of the flat or exposed roots of the grass on the grazing on the leases of the native priest. This may mean that the grazing capacity is reduced until the pasture is cured.
Brad Osadkuk said, “Whatever had happened is the next year’s deal, I think,” Brad Osadkuk said, which Jenner, near Alta, farm and farm, at the eastern end of the storm of the storm.
Many mixed farm growers still have cattle that will take this decline in the market.
Provincial Adjustment Manager George Kubar, along with crop insurance of Agricultural Financial Services Corporation, said, “This is a big, major storm, which said Provincial Adjustment Manager George Kubar with crop insurance of Agricultural Financial Services Corporation.
“At this time of the year when crops are in a mature state, the loss is destructive … there is no regrowth or recovery at that point. Everything is mature and what is lost is lost.”
Cure
Meteorologist Simon Inn, Northern Ole Project Research, said that crops and botanical satellite can quickly fill a hale mark from the image of the satellite imagery, but it depends on the growing season when the storm occurred when the storm occurred.
Another “long-track” in southern Suskechewan was created in June 2024. Some Regoth caught in early July, when NHP teams were visited. Some were ready to remove some crops by falling early.
The incident was less intense than the previous month’s storm in Alberta, although on August 4, 2024, there was another equally fierce storm to the south of Brooks. A year later, “only a very central high-spurning part of Ole Swath appears next year,” Ing said.
A retired Rangland Agologist located in Barry Adams, Lathbridge, Alta said that localized damage could be felt for years and needs to be managed carefully.
While “the prairie is very difficult,” he said, cattle producers need to manage pasture to assess conditions and encourage regrowth. This means that less animal or no grazing is re -established on the border until the cover is re -installed.
Adams said that wind and hailstorm can close natural wet grass which is formed under the native grass. This material keeps the soil cool and helps maintain moisture in 30C summer with dry air.
“Ranchers will need to identify those areas requiring special management to monitor their pastures and assist in recovery,” he said.
Osadczuk agrees with evaluation, as well as the researcher’s findings that land recovery may take a year or more.
“I have found some neighbors to my north that their entire farm basically looks like a parking lot-bus dirt. It has gone from beautiful crops-high-yielded crops-rooted in the case of half an hour.”
This disadvantage barely collides, he said, especially after a good approach after a good approach after this summer.
