Latest news with #hail
CTV News
2 hours ago
- Climate
- CTV News
Parts of Manitoba under thunderstorm watch
Colleen Bready has your current conditions and updated weather forecast for July 21, 2025. Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) has issued severe thunderstorm watches for the Manitoba Interlake region on Monday afternoon. According to the weather agency, a 'trough of low pressure' in the area could lead to the development of severe thunderstorms, as well as strong winds, large hail and heavy rain. ECCC adds that some of these thunderstorms may move eastward. If this happens, the severe thunderstorm warnings will expand to this area. The thunderstorm threat is expected to diminish by Monday evening. ECCC reminds Manitobans that 'when thunder roars, go indoors.' It notes that lightning can be deadly, heavy rain can cause flash flooding, and strong winds and hail can lead to significant damage. The watches are in place in several communities including Gimli, Selkirk, Winnipeg Beach and Grand Rapids.
CBC
a day ago
- Climate
- CBC
Hail-focused research projects 'long past due' in Canada, U.S., prof says
A new project that aims to better predict when hail will hit and how big it will be might save people big bucks in damage repairs someday. Project ICECHIP (In-situ Collaborative Experiment for the Collection of Hail In the Plains) involved dozens of researchers who spent six weeks chasing, driving and running into storms across the Great Plains in the U.S. to collect fresh hail and study it by measuring, weighing, slicing and crushing the stones to reveal what's inside. Researchers hope the hailstones will reveal secrets about storms, damage and maybe the air itself. The research was done to help improve radar-based hail detection, hail models and forecasting. The aim is to better predict hailstorms and lessen the costly damage they cause. The project, which was the largest hail-focused study in the U.S. in over four decades, involved two teams of researchers, 15 different research institutions and three international partners — including Canada's Northern Hail Project. Becky Adams-Selin, Project ICECHIP's lead principal investigator, says although hail is a worldwide problem, it hasn't gotten much attention until recent decades because it "doesn't kill people like tornadoes do." "There was a lot of focus on tornadoes first to kind of get that warning system down, which makes sense," she said. "Hail didn't really start hitting people's pocketbooks until maybe the last two decades." 40,000 hail-related claims Hail, combined with urban sprawl and deteriorating roofing materials, has created "a perfect storm," she said, and insurance companies are starting to feel the pinch. "It's become a lot more evident that some of the things we don't know about hail are really causing a lot of problems," Adams-Selin said. Data from Manitoba's public auto insurer suggests how the number of hailstorms has varied in the province over the last five years. Manitoba Public Insurance says it has received over 40,000 hail-related claims since 2021. There were 1,300 hail-related claims in 2021 and nearly 3,700 claims in 2022, but the number skyrocketed in 2023, with nearly 28,000 claims submitted. It received almost 9,300 hail-related claims in 2024. So far this year, MPI has gotten just over 700 claims submitted as of Friday. a temporary hail-damage estimate centre in order to deal with a barrage of claims, on top of claims from a massive storm in Winnipeg in August 2023 that brought golf-ball-sized hail to some areas, MPI said. Hail-focused research in Canada and the U.S. is "long past due," said John Hanesiak, a professor at the University of Manitoba's department of environment and geography who works with the Northern Hail Project, which is conducting similar research in Alberta this summer. "This is sort of one of the first projects that's been dedicated to hail [in the U.S.] in 40 years, and the same thing can be said in Canada," he said. Canada's last major hail-focused research project was the Alberta Hail Project, which ran from 1956 to 1985, Hanesiak said. Predicting when hail will hit and how big it will be is "an evolving science," but cutting open a hailstone and analyzing its shape and density can give researchers a better idea of how it grew, he said. "If we're able to measure at the ground, if we're able to measure the size distributions of the hail and collect hailstones from real storms, we can much better understand how they grow in certain conditions." Weather balloons can also help researchers understand what meteorological conditions produce specific hailstorms and hail sizes, but Hanesiak said weather balloons are limited in Canada. The balloons gather weather data from the upper atmosphere, including temperature, humidity and air pressure. In southern parts of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, there are no readings from weather balloons, he said. Hanesiak said his hope is that the projects will help researchers determine whether there are any differences between American and Canadian hailstorms. Keith Porter, chief engineer at the Ontario-based Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, which partially funds the Northern Hail Project, says hail is rarely deadly but can be extremely costly. A Calgary hailstorm in August was Canada's most destructive weather event of 2024, damaging homes, businesses, cars and the Calgary International Airport, resulting in $3 billion in insured losses, according to Catastrophe Indices and Quantification, which provides data to the insurance industry. The best way to protect property from hail damage is by parking in a garage and installing impact-resistant roofing and siding on houses and other buildings, Porter said. "The research helps us to tell [people] what the benefit of doing that is, why they should do it, [and] what's in it for them to save." Porter said hail damage is everyone's problem.
CTV News
3 days ago
- Climate
- CTV News
Calgary in path of severe thunderstorms Friday night
Friday could be the most active night of weather for the summer so far. A powerful low-pressure system in south-central B.C. is pushing our way, and Calgary is shaping up to be right in the line of fire of some hazardous weather that could bring 90 km/h winds, two-to-five-centimetre-diameter hail and localized rain amounts of 25 to 50 millimetres. gina weather / july 18, 2025 It's going to be an evening to protect, secure or remove any items exposed to the elements that could be damaged or at risk of blowing away and harming someone or something. The main timeframe of the most severe weather will likely be between the hours of 7 p.m. and 12 a.m., with the storm dissipating around 3 a.m. Saturday. The rest of Saturday morning will be calm and relatively clear, but that allows for surface heating like we saw today, with the warm rising air creating another round of instability for tomorrow afternoon and into the evening. gina weather / july 18, 2025 Sunday, the thunderstorm risk is reduced, but we will still remain under a very large trough of low pressure that will continue to circulate clouds and rain over southern Alberta throughout the rest of the weekend, with more sustained cloud coverage and rainfall into the first few days of next week. gina weather / july 18, 2025 All this instability will keep our temperatures below seasonal, with the lowest temperature of the five-day forecast on Tuesday—a high of just 14 C. We finally start to see a shift in this wet weather pattern on Wednesday, with the sun returning back into the forecast, warming us up back into seasonal territory.
CTV News
3 days ago
- Climate
- CTV News
Severe thunderstorm watch issued for Calgary
Environment Canada called a severe thunderstorm watch in Calgary for Sept. 12, 2021. (File) A severe thunderstorm watch was issued for Calgary late Friday afternoon by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). ECCC posted the watch on its website just before 5 p.m. 'Thunderstorms have developed along the foothills. Some of these thunderstorms have the potential to be severe, bringing large hail, heavy rain and strong wind gusts,' ECCC posted. The forecast overnight calls for a few showers, with the possibility of fog patches developing.
Khaleej Times
3 days ago
- Climate
- Khaleej Times
Watch: Dubai gets first hail this summer with heavy thunderstorm in parts
Dubai residents looking forward to a break from the ongoing summer heat finally received some respite in the form of rain on Friday. While some parts of Dubai witnessed early morning showers, evening brought heavy rain with a bit of hail in other areas. UAE's National Center of Meteorology reported heavy rain with small hail in Dubai's Al Aisaili on Friday afternoon. On Instagram, @storm_ae shared videos of hail alongwith heavy rain in Al Aisaili towards Margham. View this post on Instagram A post shared by �ر�ز ا�عاص�ة ��را�بة ا�ط�س �ا�ذذ�ر ا���اخ� ا��ؤسس omar alnauimi (@storm_ae) They also shared vidoes of heavy thunderstorms in Al Aisaili, Dubai-Al Ain Road, accompanied by downwinds and hail. View this post on Instagram A post shared by �ر�ز ا�عاص�ة ��را�بة ا�ط�س �ا�ذذ�ر ا���اخ� ا��ؤسس omar alnauimi (@storm_ae) They had also shared videos of early morning showers in Al Awir, Al Aisaili and Lahbab on Friday, July 18. View this post on Instagram A post shared by �ر�ز ا�عاص�ة ��را�بة ا�ط�س �ا�ذذ�ر ا���اخ� ا��ؤسس omar alnauimi (@storm_ae) The NCM has issued a yellow alert and reported rain in Al Ain. Ghshabah and Katm Al Shiklah in Al Ain received light to moderate rain on Friday.
