The Parkland has witnessed some wild weather as of late.
To go along with some hot temperatures during the day, we have seen a healthy dose of funnel clouds and tornados as well as thunderstorms capable of producing heavy rains, lots of lightning, and hail.
Manitoba has seen a higher amount of the latter so far this spring and summer, which has led to a heightened amount of crop hail insurance claims.
"So provincially, we're having quite a bit of hail activity for sure, probably moreso at this time of year than we traditionally do. We've got about 900 claims registered provincially", said David Van Deynze, the Chief Product Officer at Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation (MASC).
Van Deynze adds that about 50 of those claims were from the Fork River area from storms last week.
"We've seen some fields that are completely devastated, in that 100% loss range ... there's not a huge area that suffered that kind of damage from what I'm hearing but certainly where it hit hard it hit really hard."
Only time will tell how this year ends up being for hail, but when compared to what Van Deynze says was an abnormally quiet year for hail in 2022, this year has gotten off to a fast start.
"We had just over 1,100 hail claims in the province last year for the entire season and this year we have about 900 registered so far ... certainly we're off to a much busier start than we were at any point last year."
In addition to the Fork River area, the Gilbert Plains area saw some damaging hail last week as well.
