On August 20, southern Alberta, Canada, was hammered by a hailstorm that not only produced golf ball-sized chunks of ice but pelted the earth hard enough to leave scars visible from space. NASA’s satellite images show a 125-mile stretch of prairie scraped raw, where ice tore through crops and vegetation in a matter of minutes.
The storm began as a rotating supercell and quickly spiraled into destruction. Winds topped 75 miles per hour, tossing debris like a hurricane, while hailstones nearly two inches wide punched through roofs, dented cars, and snapped power lines. In Brooks, a small city southeast of Calgary, residents described the afternoon as if the sky had turned into an artillery field.
“The whole front of the house is destroyed,” Brooks resident Colleen Foisy told CBC. Her year-old truck was covered in dents, her boat cover ripped to shreds. “Branches from the trees. There’s hail damage all over.”
The storm tore through White Barn Fun Farm, where a fence gave way and crushed a pony and a camel the owner described as inseparable. A horse and several birds were also hurt in the chaos.
The strip of damage was so severe that it created what scientists called a visible scar on Earth’s surface. Measuring about nine miles wide, the line cuts across fields in a way that makes Alberta’s farmland look clawed by some colossal animal.
The last time hail in the region drew this kind of attention was in July, when residents were still fixing roofs before the next storm arrived.
This corner of Canada has earned the nickname “hailstorm alley,” with dozens of events every summer and billions of dollars in insurance losses over the last five years. According to NASA researchers, the goal now is to improve prediction models so storms like this aren’t only studied after the fact but anticipated in time to prepare.
Benjamin Scarino, a research scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center, said satellites are key to tracking how often these systems form. “Long-term satellite data records allow us to provide valuable insights into severe storm activity and risk,” he explained.
For now, though, Alberta’s skies are keeping their reputation as some of the most violent in North America.
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