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By The Canadian Press

Western University

Researchers hoping to help municipalities better prepare for and predict hailstorms

Jul 22, 2025 | 3:23 PM

A new crop of researchers is taking the temperature of Mother Nature’s wrath in Alberta’s famous Hailstorm Alley.

The team from Western University is collecting hailstones, examining data and measuring the extent of damage caused by the summer storms.

Project head Julian Brimelow says they collect and will sometimes make copies of the hailstones, one of which that fell in Alberta three years ago was as big as a fist.

Hailstorm Alley runs from just south of Calgary up through central Alberta.

It’s the site of more than 40 hailstorms every summer, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

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Last year, a massive hailstorm in Calgary brought widespread damage and flooding.

Total damage was pegged at close to three-billion-dollars.

Brimelow says the hope is the data will help municipalities be better prepared to predict and withstand the storms.

(The Canadian Press)