Hailstorms in Southern Saskatchewan

Abstract

This article represents a first attempt at a climatological investigation of the hail problem in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Initial results from a 5-year study in southern Saskatchewan, carried out through a volunteer observing network, indicate that the hailstorms of this section of the Great Plains are comparable in hailfall characteristics to those of the High Plains. Stone size distributions, hailfall intensity values and durations of hail are really no different. These indices of severity bear out loss costs (loss-to-risk ratio) for crop-hail insurance that are only slightly lower than those for Alberta, and lend credence to the estimate that hail losses in Saskatchewan are approximately equal to one-seventh of those in the entire United States.