Overview

Hail damage is one of the leading drivers of weather-related losses in Alberta, where individual business locations can suffer millions of dollars in damages from a single hailstorm.

Businesses such as car dealerships and fleet operators find themselves at the forefront of hail-related losses, being a focal point for expensive hail damage. These costs often come in the form of costly insurance deductibles, premium increases, operational disruptions, and repair costs.

Our HailNow Alert Service provides near-real-time alerts to those at risk of imminent impacts from damaging hail. Unlike traditional weather alerts that rely on broad warning areas, HailNow tracks the exact areas being impacted by storms, and accurately predicts where future impacts may occur.

Our weather alerts are delivered directly to our customers through text messages in an easy-to-understand format, without the need for understanding complex weather jargon.

Learn more about how our alert service works here

This map compares the weather alerts issued by both Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) and ConvectAlert Analytics as of 2pm.

The left side shows the weather alerts that nearly all weather apps use. Severe thunderstorm watches are issued when the risk exists for severe thunderstorms in the near future, while severe thunderstorm warnings are issued when severe thunderstorms are ongoing.

The right side shows the hail damage risk alerts used by HailNow. At this time there were several severe thunderstorms ongoing, however only one had been identified by ConvectAlert Analytics to be posing a threat for damaging severe hail. The predicted path of this storm can be seen on the map, where it's moving through southwest Calgary.

Many weather apps you're probably familiar with pull their weather alerts from official government sources with warnings that look like the map above. These alerts are currently based around broad geographic areas, typically based around certain counties, cities, or geographic features, rather than actual storm trajectories.

Under the current Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) system, a single severe thunderstorm anywhere within the city of Calgary will trigger an alert for everyone in Calgary, regardless of whether they're at risk of being hit by the severe thunderstorm. Naturally, this system creates a culture of overwarning, where individuals who are not in the storm's path receive alerts that are not relevant to their specific location.

Even if your weather app is pulling weather information for your exact location, there's still a very good chance that it's working off the ECCC system for weather alerts.

How HailNow Alerts Work

ConvectAlert Analytics' HailNow Alert Service takes a fundamentally different approach to severe weather alerts.

Our alerts are specifically targeted to predict only the areas where damaging hail potential exists. This drastically reduces the size of thunderstorm warning areas, typically going down to roughly the width of the thunderstorm's hail core plus a small buffer.

For the example shown below, the largest ConvectAlert warning area shown is still less than 1/20th the size of the ECCC warning areas at 2pm.

By creating smaller, more targeted warning areas, we can ensure that you only receive alerts from us when they're actually justified. Since we employ storm core tracking, we can also give you more targeted information, such as a rough ETA on when your business may be impacted by damaging hail.

So Why Pay for ConvectAlert HailNow?

False alarms cost you money

Time is money, and pulling staff away from their everyday jobs in order to prepare for an approaching hailstorm is a major disruption. While hailstorms are not common at any individual location, the whole City of Calgary can be subject to half a dozen or more severe thunderstorm warnings per year, compounding these costs.

Missed warnings can be catastrophic

Under the current warning regime, damaging hail can sometimes strike with little to no warning. Beyond just customer and employee safety concerns, a lack of sufficient weather warning lead time means little can be done to protect vulnerable assets and infrastructure, which otherwise might have been saved.

For many businesses, increasing hailstorm warning lead times from 30 to 60 minutes makes all the difference in promoting a safe and effective response to an approaching hailstorm.

Marginal benefits are the real money saver

For many businesses, avoiding hail damage entirely is unlikely, even when using HailNow. The real benefit of HailNow comes from protecting assets which otherwise would not have been saved.

In the case of a car dealership with majority hail tent coverage, that may still mean dozens of unprotected vehicles. With damages from significant hailstorms often exceeding $10,000 per vehicle, a strong incentive exists to protect every last vehicle from hail damage.

Even in cases where not every vehicle can be saved, the potential of avoiding expensive hail claims, time-consuming repairs, and ensuing operational disruptions makes ConvectAlert's HailNow a viable way of saving your business money.

What's Next?

If you're interested in learning more about how ConvectAlert Analytics can help your business, please reach out at contact@convectalert.com or on any of our social media channels.

Want to learn more?

Take a more in-depth look at how our hailstorm detection algorithm works here

See our algorithm in action for some real hailstorm cases from 2025 here