Karl Panas was eating lunch inside his Paddockwood, Sask., farm home when a sudden storm hit Aug. 26, pummeling his wheat, oats and barley and scattering the swaths of canola.
It lasted less than five minutes, with wind and rain and hail turning the ground white with golf-ball-sized nuggets, he said.
When it was over, Panas went out to inspect the carnage.
“I’m thinking on 1,500 acres, half won’t be combined,” he said, citing damage ranging from 50 to 100 percent.
Warm moist air combined with a cold front to create the storm in north-central Saskatchewan, said Bob Cormier of Environment Canada.
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It grew from showers and thunderstorms that saw hail pounding Duck Lake with nickel and quarter sized hail before the system moved on past Prince Albert to Spiritwood.
At Spruce Home, where a tornado blew the roof off the local golf clubhouse, strong winds damaged industrial sites around the town.
The bulk of damage from wind occurred around Paddockwood and Spruce Home, while hail rained down from Spruce Home to Duck Lake.
“That by far was the highlight of the week as far as weather was concerned,” Cormier said, citing no other such major weather incidents on the Prairies last week.
Downed power lines restricted highway traffic while trees were uprooted and vehicles overturned by the wind, which tossed a trailer full of workers at lunch in Spruce Home and sent four people to hospital.
Panas was counting on an average crop this year before the storm hit the area, which is not typically prone to such extremes of weather. Now he’s waiting to hear from hail and crop insurance adjusters before plowing down his fields or salvaging them for feed.
The canola was hardest hit because it was mostly cut, while damage to cereals is spread over a larger area.
The damage was principally in Panas’s fields, but his neighbour saw five grain bins topple, damaging a swather, auger and grain dryer. Powerful winds also pushed in the doors on a Quonset.
