Hail as big as tennis balls fall in Alberta
EDMONTON — Matt Berry was driving home after golfing Monday evening when cloudy skies quickly turned into a rare storm that dropped hail the size of softballs, caving in his windshield and leaving about 150 dents in his car.
“I was getting covered in shards of glass,” the graphic designer said as he recalled the moment he pulled over on a country road to take cover while driving from Innisfail, Alta., to his home in Red Deer, Alta.
“The noise was quite loud,” he said. “It was just crazy. Scary at times, but really it was just shock and awe more than anything.”
Environment and Climate Change Canada said Wednesday that the pieces of hail that fell in central Alberta ranged from the size of peas, dimes, nickels, golf balls, hen eggs, tennis balls, baseballs and softballs.
The Innisfail, Pine Lake, Condor, Rimbey and Ferrier areas were all hit, the agency said.
Environment Canada had issued a tornado watch hours before the storm, warning large hail might fall later in the evening and cause a dangerous and potentially lifethreatening situation. At about 6 p.m., an alert was sent that warned people to take immediate cover.
Videos on social media were posted after the storm of drivers on Queen Elizabeth II Highway -- the main route between Edmonton and Calgary – pulled over and covering their heads as hail loudly smashed through their windows.
Sara Hoffman, who is a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said the size of the hail was bigger than expected.
“The Prairies are a magical place with thunderstorms, so I was expecting severe thunderstorms on Monday,” she said.
“We were all kind of thinking the maximum size of hail would be about seven to eight centimetres. The biggest we saw was softball sized and it was almost 11 centimetres in diameter, and that was reported just northwest of Markerville.”
The softball-sized hail is not record-breaking in Alberta. The biggest piece of hail was 17 centimetres in diameter, which fell in Edmonton in 1987, Hoffman said.
“It can’t officially be a record because the hail was stored improperly in a freezer before it was measured, so it actually decreased in size once it was measured.”
But Hoffman said the size of the hail in Monday’s storm was still rare for Canada.
“Alberta averages 65 reports of severe hail a year,” she said. “A thunderstorm with hail becomes severe once the hail size is greater than a nickel or two centimetres.”
Hoffman said it’s also unusual for the storm to pass through a major highway.
“It takes a lot of things to align for the severe thunderstorms to be so impactful to such a major transport corridor like that,” she said.
“You’ve got warm air below cold air and that creates some really turbulent mixing. Winds coming from different directions, at different heights, at different speeds. We had a developing low pressure system over the centre of the province, so that was our trigger for thunderstorms.”
The Insurance Bureau of Canada said in a email it may not have estimates around insured losses for several weeks. It encouraged Albertans to take photos of the damages and contact their insurance representative.
The RCMP and fire departments got on location quite quickly, Berry said.
“At the end of the day, vehicles can be replaced, possessions can be replaced,” Barry said. “I’m glad that, from what I’ve heard, nobody was seriously injured.”