The wind and hail that cross the southern meadow of Alberta last month left a visible “scar” from the outer space.
On August 20, 2025, bursts of 150 kilometers per hour made and covered with grass and earth. The storm cut from South Calgary to Saskatchewan, affecting about 425,000 acres of insurable crops, in addition to native pastures and meadows.
That most intense area of the storm, a kind of epicenter that was dragged for hundreds of kilometers, left a “hail scar” that can be seen in the satellite images published by the Nasa American space agency.
A mosaic of green tones, which represent crops, hay and groups of trees is replaced by a smear that measures about 15 kilometers wide and 200 kilometers long.
It begins near Vulcan, south of Calgary, and shows the worst damage centered north of Brooks, where surface owners and agricultural producers had a demolished house lining to the nail points. The corn stems laughed in half. Irrigation pivots overturned. Asphalt tiles were sanded.
Northern Hail project researchers at Western University studied the effects of the storm on the posterior field. He concluded the heaviest damage, “among the worst that the NHP has documented to date,” said more than 22 kilometers north of Brooks.
“The damage of the crops in this strip was total, with leveled grain crops and the corn was mostly naked stems,” he says. “Even the grassland areas were sprayed, with exposed grass root systems and native shrubs naked and decelerated on their western sides.”
Such storms are not uncommon in the south of Alberta.
The Independent storm hunter Kyle Great Britain has listed 12 examples of “hail scars” on his website that have appeared in the province since 2000.
Cleaning in progress
Two weeks later, those who live and work in the most successful band are completing cleaning.
Gerald Torkelson Farms near Millicent, Alta., And has a landscape company in Brooks, about 15 kilometers south.
He was one of the 100 volunteers of the congregations of the Mennonite church that were fueled to clean the patios and transport debris in the days after the storm. When passing from the surface to the patio of the farm, trucks loaded with leaf and talled trees were taken.
“I have seen a lot of hail damage over the years, but I have never seen something like that,” he said, he added that he does not believe that many of the damaged trees survive until next spring.
“My patio looks like the moon.”
While they expect insurance adjusters, farmers who can work sections with a dozen or more kilometers away still have to harvest crops that avoid the worst damage. The little that remains in the very damaged fields will be cut for the feed of cattle or will be launched.
For farmers, the wind hit the flat grass or root systems exposed in native meadows grazing leases. That could mean several years of reduced grazing capacity until the grass recovers.
“Everything that was there is gone, so it is a next year contract, I suppose,” said Brad Osadczuk, who ranchera and farms near Jenner, high., In the east end of the Way of the Storm.
Many mixed farm producers still have cattle that will go to the market this fall.
“This is a big and large storm with many statements,” said George Kueber, provincial adjustment manager with the crop insurance of the Agriculture Financial Services Corporation.
“At this time of the year, when the crops are in mature stage, the losses are devastating … there is no regeneration or recovery at that point. Everything is mature and what is lost is lost.”
Healing the ‘scar’
The research meteorologist of the Hail del Norte project, Simon Eng, said that crops and vegetation can fill a relatively fast hail scar from the perspective of satellite images, but depends on when in the growth season he hit the storm.
In June 2024, another “Long Way” hail in Saskatchewan was formed. Some regenerations seized from early July, when NHP teams visited. At the beginning of autumn, some crops were ready to be removed.
That event was less intense than last month’s storm in Alberta, although another equally fierce storm reached southern Brooks on August 4, 2024. A year later, “only the high -central intensity part of the hail strip is still visible next year,” said Eng.
Barry Adams, a Rangeland retired agologist with headquarters in Lethbridge, Alta.
While “the meadow is quite difficult,” he said, cattle producers must evaluate the conditions and handle pastures to encourage the regrowth. That means less animals or not grazing at all in the badly stripped range until the roof is restored.
Adams said wind and hail can scrape the natural mulch that accumulates under native grass. That material keeps the ground more cold and helps retain moisture in the typical summers of 30 C with dry wind.
“Livestocks must monitor their pastures and recognize those areas that need special management to help recovery,” he said.
Osadczuk agrees with the evaluation, as well as the researcher’s findings that the recovery of the land could take a year or more.
“I have some neighbors north of me that all your farm is basically like a parking lot, only land. It went from beautiful crops, high performance crops, basically the land in a matter of half an hour.”
That loss hits hard, he said, especially after a good perspective this summer after years of dry weather.
