Reference
Calgary hail history, with the sources attached.
Calgary has taken two of the four costliest insured disasters in Canadian history, both hailstorms, four years apart. Every figure on this page carries the publisher and the date it was published, so you can check it or cite it. We repair hail damage for a living, and none of the numbers here are ours.
5 August 2024
The second-costliest disaster in Canadian history.
A supercell formed west of Cochrane in the early evening and crossed Calgary between 7:45 and 8:30 pm. Environment and Climate Change Canada took reports of hailstones the size of chicken eggs. Roughly one in five Calgary homes was affected, and insurers processed more than 130,000 claims.
- Insured losses
- C$3.25 billionInsurance Bureau of Canada, quoting CatIQ · 12 February 2025
- Rank
- Second-costliest disaster in Canadian history for insured lossesInsurance Bureau of Canada, quoting CatIQ · 12 February 2025
- Insurance claims
- More than 130,000Insurance Bureau of Canada, quoting CatIQ · 12 February 2025
- Hail swath
- More than 120 km long and 12 km wideNorthern Hail Project, Western University · August 2024
- Hail size
- Ping-pong to golf-ball sized, with a large amount of 30 mm hail recordedNorthern Hail Project, Western University · August 2024
- Storm origin
- Formed west of Cochrane at about 5:15 pm MTNorthern Hail Project, Western University · August 2024
- Over Calgary
- Crossed the city between 7:45 and 8:30 pm MTNorthern Hail Project, Western University · August 2024
One figure worth getting right. The number first reported in September 2024 was about $2.8 billion, CatIQ’s initial estimate. The Insurance Bureau of Canada’s February 2025 figure is $3.25 billion. Both have been quoted as current since, and they are nearly half a billion dollars apart. The later one is the one to use.
13 June 2020
Fourth-costliest, and it hit somewhere else.
This is the more useful of the two storms to understand, because of where it landed. The damage core was a 10 to 15 square kilometre pocket of northeast Calgary, worked over in 10 to 15 minutes, with hail up to tennis-ball size falling at 80 to 100 km/h. Airdrie and Rocky View County were hit hardest alongside it. In 2024 the swath came through from the west and ran east. Two record storms, two different halves of the region.
- Insured losses
- More than C$1.2 billionInsurance Bureau of Canada · 2020
- Rank
- Fourth-costliest natural disaster in Canadian historyInsurance Bureau of Canada · 2020
- Damage core
- A 10 to 15 km² area of northeast Calgary, hit inside 10 to 15 minutesInsurance Bureau of Canada · 2020
- Hardest hit
- Northeast Calgary, Airdrie and Rocky View CountyInsurance Bureau of Canada · 2020
- Homes and vehicles damaged
- At least 70,000Insurance Bureau of Canada · 2020
- Hail size
- Up to tennis-ball sized, falling at 80 to 100 km/hInsurance Bureau of Canada · 2020
That is why a neighbour’s write-off tells you nothing about your own car, and why we scan every panel instead of pricing from a storm date. Hail in this city is decided street by street.
How the 2024 numbers are known
Measured, not estimated.
Calgary is one of the most heavily instrumented hail environments anywhere. The Northern Hail Project, run by Western University out of Olds, has hail disdrometers across the city, and ten of them were struck on 5 August 2024 and recorded a large amount of 30 mm hail. The single station outside Calgary city limits is in Airdrie.
- Operator
- Northern Hail Project, run by Western University and based in Olds, AlbertaNorthern Hail Project, Western University · August 2024
- Stations in Calgary
- 20 hail disdrometers inside city limitsNorthern Hail Project, Western University · August 2024
- Stations outside Calgary
- One in AirdrieNorthern Hail Project, Western University · August 2024
- Stations struck on 5 August 2024
- TenNorthern Hail Project, Western University · August 2024
Hailstorm Alley
The corridor, and its edges.
Runs from High River, south of Calgary, north through the city toward Red Deer and central Alberta. It sees more than 40 hailstorms in a typical summer. It is a descriptive term rather than a mapped boundary, and anyone drawing it as a hard line is inventing precision that does not exist. What it does tell you is direction: Okotoks sits on the southern leg, Airdrie on the northern one, and Calgary in the middle of both.
CBC News, reporting on Alberta hail suppression · 2020
Sources, in full
Cite the original publishers rather than this page. Loss figures come from the Insurance Bureau of Canada quoting CatIQ; storm timing, swath dimensions and hail sizes come from the Northern Hail Project at Western University.
- Insurance Bureau of Canada, quoting CatIQ · 12 February 2025
- Insurance Bureau of Canada · 2020
- Northern Hail Project, Western University · August 2024
- CBC News, reporting on Alberta hail suppression · 2020
Using these figures in a story or a report? They are public and we have no claim on them. If this page saved you the assembly work, a link back is welcome and entirely optional.
Your car, not the statistics
None of this tells you what yours will cost.
Hail here is decided panel by panel. The scan takes about thirty minutes, it is free, and you leave with the figure in writing.