Understanding the agricultural perspective of hailstorms

One certainty about High Plains summers is the occurrence of hailstorms, some of which can be destructive on crops and property. But what do farmers actually think about hailstorms and their vulnerabilities toward them and how can that information help the forecasting community and improve risk communication?

As part of my Ph.D. work, I sought out to answer these questions by interviewing 15 experienced farmers and ranchers across eastern Colorado.

Vulnerability and severity

To understand how farmers and ranchers perceived their vulnerability to hailstorms, I asked each respondent to rate his or her exposure, i.e., how likely a hailstorm is to occur on his or her property on a given year, and sensitivity, i.e., the degree to which he or she is able to cope with the effects of hailstorms, on a 1-to-10 scale. The resulting histogram shows a split in perceived exposure, but almost all interviewees perceived high sensitivity due to factors like market stress and crop selection. There was also a perceived increase in damaging hail events in recent years, which is consistent with a recent climatological study of eastern Colorado hailstorms. As Interviewee No. 3 put it, “I don’t think our risk has changed. I think the likelihood of that risk coming to fruition has changed.”

Most farmers and ranchers measure hailstorm severity not by size of hailstone, but by impacts on crops. In general, small hail in large volumes or driven by stiff winds are most concerning due to their greater impacts on crops, which was the most-often cited negative impact from hailstorms. Interviewee No. 6 shared, “It’s not necessarily the size of the stone that matters. It’s the amount of them and how hard they [fall].”

This is an important finding for the local forecasting community, who currently only issue warnings for hail when it is expected to be at least 1 inch. Although “there’s really not much you can do [to protect crops],” as Interviewee No. 15 said, improved predictability would certainly help day-to-day operational decisions and mitigate human injury.

Risk communication

The interview sample was quick to provide cloud and sky and characteristics used as omens for hailstorms. Most commonly mentioned features included green clouds and humid mornings. Aside from observational evidence, hailstorm warning messages are most often received via cell phones—either from the Emergency Alert System, county-level warning systems, or weather apps—due to their convenience and availability when in the fields. Television, internet, and radio sources are rarely or never used by many farmers. This finding affirms the importance of clear and effective phone-based warning messages as the primary channel of reaching the agricultural sector with critical information.

Internal responses

The interviews exposed a wide variety of emotions to hailstorms, showing their depth of impact on an individual. A few of these include:

• Interviewee No. 8: “It really is something that everybody worries about.”
• Interviewee No. 3: “Constant anxiety and fear and concern.”
• Interviewee No. 11: “If it happens, it happens. Nothing you can do about it [except] accept it.”
• Interviewee No. 9: “We’re all here for a reason, and part of that is the gratification of our hard work … there’s a hole in your psyche that takes a while to fill back up with something else.”

Toward greater awareness

The findings presented here (and many more) reveal the need for greater awareness of the agricultural impacts from hailstorms. They call for deeper partnerships between the forecasting and agricultural sectors to ensure timely and clear communication. They also showcase the complexities of trying to prepare for and mitigate hailstorm damage amid ever-changing markets and climatological frequency. For hailstorms that impact the rural farming communities of the High Plains affect not only the farmer’s business, but also his or her livelihoods. In the words of Interviewee No. 8:

“I see hail as something that needs to be a little more recognized. I know that when it happens in the cities it’s a bigger deal because there’s more personal property damaged. But people don’t see the crops as a big deal even though maybe one crop costs more money in insurance than all the cars on a city block [that] are damaged … People don’t stop to realize the long-term effects of that.”

The hope is that this work will spur on continued research efforts and increase recognition of the hailstorm impacts and vulnerabilities faced by the region’s essential farming and ranching communities.

Childs recently defended his Ph.D. in Colorado State University’s Dept. of Atmospheric Science, advised by Russ Schumacher. His research focuses on projecting human exposure from future hailstorms and tornadoes across eastern Colorado. This work was made possible through funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program Grant No. DGE-1321845 as well as NSF Grant No. AGS-1637244.