Alberta weather events prominent in Environment and Climate Change Canada's top 10 for 2024

Four of Environment and Climate Change Canada's (ECCC) top 10 weather events of 2024 were in Alberta.

Two of them were among the costliest weather events in Canadian history.

Calgary's Aug. 5 hailstorm affected close to one in five homes in Calgary, damaged the Calgary airport and racked up close to $1 billion in automobile claims.

DCC Hail's Canadian operations manager Jessica Ursel says it's the most damaging storm the company has ever dealt with.

"This has been one of the largest events that I've personally seen, especially when it comes to hail," Ursel said.

"That five minutes of hail is probably going to give us two years' worth of work. We're booking almost into next summer."

ECCC meteorologist Jennifer Smith says the extent of the damage in that August hailstorm was not just the result of large hail and powerful winds.

"Part of it is just spread. We've got a much larger city than previously. Calgary is growing, so there's more of Calgary to be affected by these types of events and thunderstorms themselves," Smith said.

"Certainly, the ones that have happened in the Calgary region in the last five years have been very impactful."

The wildfire that tore through Jasper, costing almost $900 million, was also in ECCC's list of top weather stories.

ECCC says the increasing severity and frequency of catastrophic weather events show a need to ameliorate the effects of climate change.

"We are certainly observing more extreme events than we have in the past. That aligns with what is expected with climate change," Smith said.

"Our world is changing, and we do need to find ways to adapt to it. How do we go about doing that? I'm not sure that I personally have the answers to that, but I definitely think that is something that as Canadians, we need to put our heads together and come up with a way to mitigate and to plan for these types of situations, because they're not going to be going away."

Craig Stewart, the Insurance Bureau of Canada's vice-president of climate change and federal policy, says weather-related disasters including the hailstorm and the Jasper wildfire will affect insurance rates.

"It doesn't bode well for insurance premiums. I mean, particularly, you know, if you have hail coverage in Calgary, for instance, and the industry has paid out multibillion-dollar claims, you know, for three of the last five years," Stewart said.

"Insurers are going to take a look at Calgary and say, 'Boy, we're going to have another bad hailstorm in the next few years.'

"This is not sustainable. We can't be seeing losses escalate this rapidly, and for governments to continue to do nothing, frankly, or very little, and expect insurance to still be available across the country."

According to ECCC, Canada's 10 most impactful weather stories of 2024 were (unranked and in no particular order):

• Arctic communities face unusual heatwave
• Central Canada bears the brunt of the 2024 hurricane season
• Billion-dollar hailstones: Calgary's costliest weather disaster
• Western Canada plunged into January deep freeze
• Wildfires and evacuations in western Labrador
• Southern Ontario's summer of floods
• Cape Breton's winter wallop
• From heatwave to wildfires: Jasper's summer inferno
• Summer split: Maritimes sizzle while Alberta shivers
• Atmospheric rivers deliver double blow to British Columbia