Latest news with #hailstorms
Globe and Mail
3 hours ago
- Climate
- Globe and Mail
In Alberta's ‘Hailstorm Alley,' scientists-turned-storm-chasers look into the eye of the storm for answers
Nearly every summer now, residents of Alberta and the Prairies are confronted by a costly, extreme weather event that damages homes, dents cars and devastates crops: hail. But researchers from Western University's Canadian Severe Storms Laboratory are hoping to improve Canada's understanding of hailstorms by collecting data in central Alberta for their Northern Hail Project. 'Hailstorm Alley,' a region stretching from central to southern Alberta, experiences multiple hailstorms each year – storms that caused billions of dollars in damage in the record-setting seasons of 2020 and 2024. Since 2022, the region has been the summer home to Western students and scientists-turned-storm-chasers. It starts with studying the forecast. When cumulonimbus clouds – towering clouds that from the ground look dense and ominous – take shape, research team members pile into cars in search of hail. From the passenger seat, one person tracks the storm's movement on radar, while another navigates the criss-crossing Prairie roads to position the team safely behind the hail swath, which is the storm's footprint. Often, there's a third researcher observing the hail stones from the back seat. This summer's team has completed 19 'missions' so far. Storm-chasing requires focus but is an exciting job, said project field co-ordinator Jack Hamilton in a recent interview. 'There are a lot of highs and lows,' Mr. Hamilton said. 'We sometimes miss out on the storm that we want to be on. Sometimes we get surprised by the hail size or the intensity of the storm.' Every storm is different, making the hail events exciting for students but difficult for meteorologists. Current modelling isn't great at predicting the degree of property damage or the risk of injury posed by individual hail events. 'One of the things we're doing is looking at creating a hail climatology for Canada,' the project's director, Julian Brimelow, said. 'We don't really have anything reliable like that across Canada right now, which is a problem for municipalities and people wanting to assess risk.' Hail forms when moist air rises quickly to cooler heights inside of brewing storms. The foothills of Alberta and the Prairies in the summer form the perfect conditions for long-lived supercell thunderstorms. With powerful updrafts, these storms can produce both hail and tornadoes. As the atmosphere warms, its ability to hold moisture increases, creating the conditions for more frequent hailstorms, according to Mr. Brimelow, who has chased storms for three decades. 'We get a lot of ping-pong-ball to golf-ball-sized hail with the most severe storms,' Mr. Brimelow said. 'Summer on the Prairies will get baseball, even softball-sized hail in the right conditions, and those can be fatal to humans.' In Alberta, golf-ball-sized hail stones can reach speeds over 100 kilometres an hour before hitting the ground. The team has a running wager for whoever finds the summer's largest hail stone. Three years ago, as the project was being launched, that summer's cohort of researchers found Canada's largest hailstone on record, a whopping 12.3 centimetres in diameter and weighing almost 300 grams. The team measures the size of the hail swath, and individual hail stones, which they collect and preserve in refrigerated containers. Data collected by the team automatically uploads to their database, feeding models they hope will enable meteorologists to more accurately predict the impact of hailstorms. Much of current hail research is done by studying radar data and using other technology, as well as relying on community reports from weather events, rather than on-the-ground scientists who look for the truth at the centre of a storm, Mr. Brimelow said. 'Nothing beats ground truthing,' he said.
News.com.au
29-07-2025
- Climate
- News.com.au
‘Bigger, more frequent' hail forecast for Australian cities
Younger generations of Australians are being warned to expect significantly larger and more frequent hail into the future with a new study revealing which cities are most at risk. The paper from UNSW's Dr Timothy Raupach and Dr Joanna Aldridge looked at the possible changes a 2.4 degree rise in global temperatures would have on Australian hailstorms from 2080-2100. 'Between (time periods), there were increases in seasonal hail days of 29 per cent around Sydney/Canberra and 15 per cent around Brisbane,' Dr Raupach told NewsWire. 'Mean hail size increased by 0.5mm around Melbourne, Sydney/Canberra, and Brisbane, while maximum hail size, important for damage potential, increased by 7.8mm around Melbourne and 3.9mm around Sydney/Canberra.' Dr Raupach said any hail above two centimetres in diameter was considered damaging. 'Here we're talking about very large hailstones, sort of five centimetres or even 10 centimetres,' Dr Raupach said. 'Those are kinds of hail that can punch through people's roofs and cause their roof tiles to break and then you get flooding inside the house and of course they also can damage cars and be very dangerous for people as well. 
 'Because the damage you get from a hailstorm correlates very closely with the size of the hailstones that are produced by that storm, it indicates that in those regions we would be looking at an increased damage risk.' Data from the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) shows hail is already one of Australia's most costly natural disasters with the frozen water missiles responsible for more than 20 per cent of insurance losses in Australia from 1967 to 2023. Hail is also not currently part of the building regulations Australian constructors are expected to adhere to, it's a point Dr Raupach believes can be acted on now to strengthen our cities into the future. 'I think there's room for discussions around how they could be built in because hail already – even without the future climate forecast – causes really significant damage,' he said. 'It's a leading driver of insured losses year to year. 'So building in things like hail resilience into our building standards would be a really good way to start to strengthen our cities. And then we can also look at possible future changes as well.' Dr Raupach said the research was still in its early stages and further studies were needed to gain greater clarity and confidence in predictions. 'This is just one study, so it's looking at it from one angle. It's using one simulation and one model,' he said. 'Ideally, we'd have multiple simulations in what's called an ensemble where you have lots of different simulations and you can look at how much they agree or disagree.' For those who are confused how a rise in global temperatures equates to giant hail balls, Dr Raupach explained for every degree the atmosphere warms, it can hold 7 per cent more moisture. This added moisture means more 'fuel' for passing weather systems to draw on, when that weather system is a hail producing one it means larger and more damaging hail.
ABC News
29-07-2025
- Climate
- ABC News
Giant hail threat increases for Australian cities as climate warms
The frequency of "giant" hail and the number of hail days in a season could increase substantially for multiple Australian cities as the climate warms, a new study has found. The University of New South Wales study modelled the severity of hailstorms for the current and future climate across Australia's most hail-prone major cities, including Brisbane, the Sydney/Canberra area, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. It is one of the first studies to simulate how hailstorm frequency and severity — one of the most costly natural perils in Australia — may change in the future. It also looked at the WA goldfields town of Kalgoorlie, which the researchers said was a hotspot for hail. The study found that while the overall frequency of hailstorms only increased for a few cities, the chances of "giant hail" would become more frequent by the end of the century for Melbourne, Perth, Kalgoorlie, Sydney and Canberra. The "future" scenario assumes a warming of about 2.8 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in 2080–2100, which the researchers say is within the range of projections for our current emissions pathway. In Melbourne, the likelihood of 10cm hailstones hitting the city would increase from once every 20 years to once every three years, according to the study's findings. "In Melbourne, we saw that in the historical simulations, you might expect a 10cm hailstone, so that's like a pretty big hailstone, to occur once every 20 years in those simulations," the author of the research paper, Dr Tim Raupach, said. "But in the future scenario, that time reduces to every three years. Kalgoorlie saw similarly big increases in the frequency of giant hail — with 10cm hail recurring every six years in the future, compared to 18 years now. In Sydney and Canberra, giant hail already has a risk of happening once every three years, on average, but this goes to once every two years in the future scenario. In Perth, the chance of seeing giant hail with a diameter of 5cm increased from 14 per cent in any given year to 21 per cent, but the trends for 10cm hail were less clear. Giant hail has been shown to cause substantial damage to cities in the past, with some of Australia's most expensive insurance disasters coming from hailstorms. The Bureau of Meteorology issues warnings when hail is over 2cm in size. The simulations also predict the overall frequency of hailstorms will increase by nearly 30 per cent in Sydney and Canberra and 15 per cent in Brisbane — two areas already very prone to hail. "So those east coast cities — we saw increases in the frequency in the future simulations but in the other places we looked at, the changes were not significant, so no big changes there," Dr Raupach said. In Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney and Canberra, it's not just how often the hailstorms and large hail come around that is increasing. The stones are also predicted to get bigger in general, with the biggest stones in any given storm in Melbourne predicted to increase by nearly a centimetre in diameter on average, according to the study. Hail is one of the most costly natural disasters, responsible for more than 20 per cent of insurance losses in Australia from 1967 to 2023. This includes the 1999 Sydney Hailstorm — Australia's most expensive natural disaster in insurance history — which saw an "avalanche" of cricket ball-sized hailstones blasting through roofs, windows and cars. The freak storm caused $1.7 billion in insured losses at the time, estimated at $8.85 billion if it were to happen today. Perth residents also remember the 2010 hailstorm, which left the city in tatters and led to over $1 billion in insurance claims. There are still cars on the road today bearing golf-ball-sized dents. Dr Raupach said Australia's booming rooftop solar installations could make our cities and towns even more vulnerable to cost blow-outs now. "Hail can damage solar panels. We've seen it happen — in Brisbane in 2020 and in the US as well," he said. Given the hefty price tag of these events, Dr Raupach said it was something Australia needed to consider, noting hail was not in the building regulations. "This was a study looking at the end of the century," he said. "If climate change is making hailstones larger, then first of all, we should reduce emissions so that we kind of tamp down the effects of climate change. Despite the study's findings, Dr Raupach described the impact of climate change on hail as still being "uncertain", noting this was only one study. He said further studies were also needed on wind speeds, which could act to make the damage of hailstorms far worse by blowing the stones sideways into windows. One of the main reasons for hail getting larger is the warming of the atmosphere, according to Dr Raupach. With every degree the atmosphere warms, it can hold 7 per cent more moisture. This extra moisture acts as "fuel" for a storm when the right weather system comes along, meaning it has the potential to be more powerful and create larger hail. But Dr Raupach said other "dynamical" parts of weather made the situation more complicated from place to place. "The ingredients you need for a hailstorm [are] instability in the atmosphere and you need the wind to be changing with height, that's called wind shear, and you need plenty of moisture," he said. "Let's take Brisbane as an example. There, we see an increase in the instability but we see a decrease in the wind shear, and that seems to have an offsetting effect … that might explain why we're not seeing these changes in hailstone size in Brisbane. "But in Melbourne, for example, we're seeing increases in both of those ingredients, and so it makes sense that we're seeing changes in the hail size there." Adelaide did not show any significant trends in either frequency or hail size. Hobart and Darwin were not included in the study because they "don't get hail as often", according Dr Raupach.
Washington Post
26-06-2025
- Science
- Washington Post
PHOTO ESSAY: Behind-the-scenes moments as hail chasers learn about pounding and costly storms
MORTON, Texas — Even when Mother Nature turns nasty, the weather extremes carry a sense of awesome beauty. About 60 scientists this spring and early summer went straight into hailstorms to better understand what makes them tick and learn how to reduce the $10 billion in annual in damage they cause each year in the United States.
Associated Press
26-06-2025
- Climate
- Associated Press
PHOTO ESSAY: Behind-the-scenes moments as hail chasers learn about pounding and costly storms
MORTON, Texas (AP) — Even when Mother Nature turns nasty, the weather extremes carry a sense of awesome beauty. About 60 scientists this spring and early summer went straight into hailstorms to better understand what makes them tick and learn how to reduce the $10 billion in annual in damage they cause each year in the United States. When three Associated Press colleagues joined the scientists for several days, they found more than just hail, strong winds, rain and science in the storm. They found breathtaking sights and sounds to share. One person charged with keeping others safe When there are dozens of scientists — many of them students — high-tech radar, weather balloons, hail collecting devices and storms that sometimes have tornadoes in them, someone has to make sure it all goes well and no one gets hurt. For the first few weeks of Project ICECHIP that someone was Victor Gensini, Northern Illinois University meteorology professor and one of the hail team's lead scientists. Gensini and his hand-picked students guided everyone like chess pieces via a computer program called Guru in his command vehicle. But he couldn't just sit back in the SUV and let others have the fun. He would drive close to the storm, not close enough to get the car damaged because unlike the Husky Hail Hunter he didn't have protective mesh hanging over the windshield. But he would get close enough to study, direct and just gaze in wonder at storms that would take over the horizon in the Texas panhandle and nearby Oklahoma and New Mexico. The clouds themselves tell the story of a roiling atmosphere. At times dark and dangerous, sometimes they are light with visible vertical stripes indicating downpours. And then a large bulging tornado can form and inspire awe and fear. There are small twisters that can also form and turn out just as dangerous. And finally if you are lucky at the end, there's a rainbow or two. One afternoon in the Texas panhandle, the hail chasing team could gaze out and see a double rainbow and a swirling twister that didn't quite reach the ground. The clouds aren't just beautiful above the vast plains. When they frame a building, such as the one sporting the Hollis Tigers mascot in Hollis, Texas, they combine to look menacing and stark. Two teams work to gather data before storms hit Two teams, the Red and the Black Teams, try to go ahead of the storm to see how it develops. They release wind balloons with instruments and GPS tracking that measure moisture, wind speed and direction. Inflating weather balloons is not a simple task. As gusty winds push, students scientists they have to inflate the balloon, tie it up, connect the instrument panel which is sealed in a disposable coffee cup with a lid on it. Then it's time to release the weather balloons. It's a two-person job with one holding the cup of instruments and the other the balloon. Releasing weather balloons isn't just letting them go. It's got to be done with some care — usually a 'one, two, three' and release — otherwise the instrument cup could slam into the balloon holder as an Associated Press reporter nearly found out the hard way. Once released, the balloons can fly as high as 60,000 feet or more. Or they can never quite get off the ground if there's a tiny hole in the balloon. There's also time to gawk as well as be scientists. Black Team members Evelynn Mantia and Olivena Carlisle, both of NIU, take photos of an approaching storm they have been monitoring. And once they finish, their job is to fall back a bit and then collect hail that has dropped. A storm hits, forcing one team to take cover The Red Team also releases weather balloons to get ahead of the storm and collect hail stones afterward. But the three students also get to go a bit into the storms. Ahead of the gathering storm, Ethan Mok and Wyatt Ficek release their balloon. In the first several days of the ICECHIP campaign, the Red Team earned a reputation for pushing the envelope. And on this late afternoon into early evening in New Mexico, the team, with Mok at the wheel, showed why. After releasing their balloons they went ahead into the storm as the skies darkened. The rain started coming down. Winds began to blow. They pulled over to take some pictures of the storm taking over the horizon. As they did, a semitruck sped down the road into the storm. Mok and team members laughed, saying the truck would have to turn around. The Red Team wasn't going to turn around. Photos taken, they drove off into the storm like the truck. The skies got even darker. Winds and rain intensified. Visibility out the windshield disappeared. Somewhat reluctantly, Mok finally pulled off the tiny road and waited. They watched the semitruck come back and try to flee the storm. They vehicle shook. They stared at weather radar and outside. Over the radio, Gensini had meteorology student Katie Wargowsky radio to them to get to safety. Mok quickly complied, trying to go south and around the storm and back to the chasers' hotel. The storm had other ideas. It overtook the Red Team. Hail was coming down. Wind was whipping. Visibility was gone. Wargowsky radioed for them to pull into a gas station for safety. Mok said he wished he could but the stretch of road was remote and there were no gas stations for cover. He had to barrel through, finally making it to a fast food drive-thru as reward. Scientist hail chasers see others rushing into storms Ever since the movie 'Twister,' storm chasing has gone from a scientific pursuit to an adrenaline filled, social media-stoked touristy pastime. As the scientific team of hail hunters chased down a massive storm system near Morton, Texas, car after car of storm chasers, some with creative license plates, zipped by. At times, storm chasers dotted the side of the road, cameras at the ready. Gensini, the project ICECHIP operations chief, often had to caution his team to be watchful of the crazy driving of the tornado chasers. They could be as much of a hazard as the storms themselves, Gensini cautioned. Tony Illenden drives the Husky Hail Hunter, one of the team's prime vehicles that goes right into the storms. It has mesh hanging above the windshield to protect it from being cracked. Illenden is careful with a helmet on his head to make sure it isn't cracked from hail when he goes out in the storm. Sometimes it comes awfully close. And once it came too close smacking his unprotected hand, which swelled up for a couple days and then was better. Collecting hail is a key part of the science. So researchers, wearing gloves so as not to warm up the ice balls, pick up the hail, put them in bags and then in coolers. Then they get crushed, sliced, measured, weighed and otherwise examined. With the red plains stretching out, a storm in its sheer magnificence forms an odd looking hole in the clouds. It's a signal of danger. The lower cloud is the wall cloud, where energy and moisture flows up. The cloud then forms lower. The empty space is the dangerous rear flank downdraft, which is cooler air pushing down with great force, getting wrapped around the backside of the wall cloud, team forecaster David Imy said. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
