"hail stones!" by my little red suitcase is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

The last half of June saw over 1000 hail claims come in across western Canada, the vast majority of them coming from Saskatchewan. 

Tyson Ryhorechuk, president of the Canadian Crop Hail Association, says most reports came in following the string of tornadoes that occurred on June 19th. He lists the regions that were hit the hardest as south and east of Regina, east of Estevan, Frobisher, Rosetown, Plenty, Neilburg, Shaunavon, Nokomis, Lanigan, and Ituna. 

The hailstorms didn’t end there. He says every day between June 23 and 29th, there was some sort of hail event in Saskatchewan. Hail sizes ranged from pea-sized to toonie-sized, however “Given how early most of the crops are at most point in time, there is a pretty good success rate at recovery in most areas.”

Ryhorechuk says there are a few differences between the hail seen this season and last season. 

“In comparison to last year, we had seen a lot of hail in early June, and then in kind of trickled off towards the end of June, whereas this year is obviously the opposite…If you’re looking at overall claims experienced, it’s running just about par from last year for the amount of claims that are out in the countryside.”

He says due to the large number of claims coming in, there will be a lot of adjusters bustling around to attend claims in a timely fashion. 

“Organization and preparation are crucial in effective claims adjudication, so as an industry, we are asking that farmers are diligent and timely in filing their claims, as it allows companies to best plan and prepare claims for their adjusters in the field to make sure they are getting their routes and their timing done in a timely fashion.”