Hail storm hits Altona

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This article was published 28/08/2015 (3922 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Video from Korey Peters in Altona

Southern Manitoba residents woke up to a quick and vicious hail storm this morning that flattened farmers’ fields and nicked vehicles.

Korey Peters, who had been stopped in Altona to haul grain through town, said he spotted golf-ball-sized hail around 8:45 a.m.

That’s when he realized he’d forgotten to close the tarp on his semi.

“I couldn’t do it because it was hailing so much,” Peters said. “I’ve never seen anything like that. I’ve seen videos form others, but it was pretty intense.”

Peters said the storm lasted about 10 minutes.

Cameron Hildebrand, a farmer in the neighbouring town of Plum Coulee, was driving when the storm hit said it darkened the skies “very fast.”

He saw hail the size of baseballs.

Hildebrand’s bean and corn crops took a beating and might be beyond repair at this point in the season, he said.

“(We have) a long way to go for harvest still, so there’s a fair amount of dollars in damage,” he said. “Once the beans shatter, then you lose them to the ground. So then those are lost, so you can’t recapture that. The corn leaves are ripped, but the damages there won’t be as noticeable.”

It’s the third or fourth time his farm was hit by hail this summer, Hildebrand said.

Hildebrand and Peters both said it seems there’s been more severe weather in southern Manitoba than usual this summer.

“It’s Manitoba, we get crazy weather. We know that, but it seems like more this year,” Peters said.

Environment Canada asks Manitobans to tag their storm photos with the hashtag #mbstorm or email them directly to storm@gc.mb.ca to help them track severe weather.