AUTO HAIL REPAIR NEWS

EDMONTON - A record 89 hailstorms flattened farmers fields in the summer, resulting in a $150 million loss for Alberta's crop insurer.

"It was a bad year for farmers and a bad year for us ...," said Gilbert Goudreau, manager of adjusting services for Agriculture Financial Services Corp. which paid out more than 7,200 hail-related claims this year, a record.

"Usually, certain areas will get hit by hail but this year, whether it was Peace River or Lethbridge, there was heavy hail across the province."

Many farmers have both a hail endorsement on their crop insurance, as well as straight hail insurance. The total number of farmers filing claims was around 5,500, more than one-third of the insured farmers, he said.

There will likely be an increase in next year's premium, but the rate is based on a long-term, 25-year average to make the crop insurance system run on a break-even basis, he said.

Hail is such a problem in Alberta that the insurance industry spends $2.5 million on seeding clouds to reduce the size of hailstones.

A major hailstorm can cause millions of dollars in damage. Insurance companies have pooled their resources to seed mostly in the heavy hail areas of central Alberta and around Calgary.

"We're certainly convinced that this helps bring premiums down," said Michael Debolt, government affairs manager of the Alberta branch of the Insurance Bureau of Canada. "It is a worthy investment to do that."

David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada, said from Toronto that seeding doesn't stop hail storms, but reduces the size of the stones.

Hail forms when moisture from clouds creates ice crystals around small particles of dust. There is only a certain amount of moisture in a cloud. When particles of a substance such as silver iodide is added, more hailstones are formed, but they are much smaller and less damaging.

A wet spring followed by intense heat in July created the perfect recipe for big hailstorms, Phillips said.

The same conditions that produced the bumper crop that was growing last summer were also conducive to violent storms, and the feverish growth of the plants add to the moisture in the air and feed storm conditions, Phillips said.

Major storms were common across the Prairies this summer, he said.

There was a record 410 severe weather events, which include wind storms, drenching rain, tornadoes and hailstorms in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, breaking the record 297 in 2006. One hail storm in Dauphin, Man., damaged 60 per cent of the vehicles to the extent that they are writeoffs.

While the past two summers of extreme weather is consistent with climate change, Phillips said it is not a "smoking gun" that proves global warming.

Part of the increase in the number of storms is reflective of better reporting, he said.

"There's more property damage now, but not necessarily because there's more storms, but because there's more property being covered."

msadava@thejournal.canwest.com