This area of Alberta, NASA says, is known as “hailstorm alley” because its climate and geography support storm development.
To put the length of the hail scar into perspective, the distance between the Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary where the Flames play, to Red Deer Resort and Casino in Red Deer, is about 197 km.
In terms of width, it’s similar to a body of water in Canada.
Lac Saint-Pierre in Quebec, a widening of the Saint Lawrence River, is about 15km wide.
Multiple farmers found themselves in the storm’s path.
Like Curtis Harbinson, a cattle producer from Brooks who was baling hay when the storm arrived.
“All of a sudden I can’t see,” he told CBC. “And what I mean, I can’t see in the tractor. I was following the bale route, trying to find a fence sign so that I actually could get back to my truck.”
The storm broke windows on Harbinson’s home and caused cattle to flee.
And crops stood no chance against the high winds and hail.
“Unfortunately, in many fields crops were shredded by Wednesday’s storm in Alberta,” Braydon Morisseau, a storm chaser and weather consultant, posted on X. “These corn stalks were stripped to the ground, leaving only a few inches of stems.”