Julian Brimelow holds up a replica of the mother of all hailstones — a lumpy white blob as big as your fist carrying the weight of two baseballs with the power to pulverize fields of corn into green-yellow mush.

Brimelow and other researchers from Western University in London, Ont., are using it in their research to better understand and predict Alberta's prevalent hailstorm activity, and mitigate harm to people and property.

Hail can be bad across the Prairies. But Brimelow says when it hits in Alberta, it hits hard.

"It's much worse than I thought it could be in terms of damage potential," Brimelow said Tuesday at the project's open house at the Telus Spark Science Centre.

"On the same day as the (2024) Calgary hailstorm, there was a storm farther south and that decimated six to seve

See Full Page