Little remained untouched by hail in Allan, Sask., after a violent thunderstorm July 7 broke windows, damaged buildings and pummeled field crops.
Scott Watson, with Parrish and Heimbecker Elevators at Allan, said he found window glass scattered two metres into his offices. The other two elevators also sported broken windows as did most homes and businesses.
“In town, the vinyl siding was chewed up and cracked and busted up,” he said.
On the morning of July 9, he was just starting to hear of the hit and miss nature of the Saskatoon area storm, which hardly touched his cottage at Blackstrap Lake and one farm at Elstow but rained down hard on others.
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Zelma, Sask., farmers Noreen and Lloyd Johns estimated about 900 acres of their 2,500 seeded acres of pedigreed grass, wheat, canola, peas and flax were damaged by hail.
They think their later seeded wheat might fare the best but it’s too soon to know for sure.
Noreen Johns said their crops were thriving and promising high yields from good moisture this year.
“Now the guys are a little depressed,” she said, adding that the 2006 crop was also looking above average until an intensely hot July downgraded it to average. Johns said hail as big as golf balls came in two waves.
“There were branches all over the lawn, it’s just a real mess,” said Johns, who spent the weekend cleaning up her farmyard.
House siding and grid roads were pitted and windows and vehicle lights were broken, with hail punching a hole in a spray tank.
Stained glass windows were broken at Allan’s Catholic church as were the historic shaped windows of the United Church at Zelma, a heritage site.
Bob Cormier of Environment Canada explained how last week’s intense heat combined with cooler air to create the system, which swept through areas west and northwest of Saskatoon and east along Highway 16.
“They were here, there and everywhere,” he said, citing reports of the ground turning white with golf ball sized hail at Dundurn.
Strong, gusty winds were associated with the system, which dumped quarter sized hail on Langham, golf ball sized at Delisle and baseball sized east of Vanscoy.
There were also reports of less severe storms in the parkland and southwestern areas of the province.
Terry Bedard, who compiles the crop reports each week for Saskatchewan Agriculture, said hail damage is pegged at 25 to 50 percent around Allan.
“They don’t look that bad on a driveby; you have to get right into it to see the damage,” she said.
Some crop reporters indicate damage as high as 80 percent around Hanley and Dundurn, with Foam Lake also experiencing a storm in a swath two kilometres wide and 16 km long.
In Delisle, plow winds uprooted trees and bins and dumped hail. Around Perdue, about one-third of the rural municipality has been touched by hail. There are also reports of localized hail damage as far south as Eastend.
Bedard said it’s now wait and see as farmers assess the damage.
Shawn Jaques, customer service manager with Saskatchewan Crop Insurance, said they are getting calls from producers at Clavet and Blaine Lake, with significant damage reported at Allan.
He advised producers to call crop insurance adjusters before deciding to put any damaged fields to other uses like grazing.
