How Our Hailstorm Prediction Algorithm Works

Hailstorms are an extremely costly natural disaster in Canada, occurring mainly during the spring and summer months when weather conditions allow for the development of powerful thunderstorms. These thunderstorms in turn form hailstones, which are dense balls of ice that fall to the ground, often causing significant property damage. Alberta is known as the hail capital of Canada, experiencing by far the most hailstorms, however there are currently a lack of resources being dedicated to the prediction, detection, and mitigation of the damage caused by hailstorms.

ConvectAlert Analytics was created to bring better weather data to Canadians. By bridging the gap between the information that skilled meteorologists have access to, and the general public, ConvectAlert brings actionable weather data to Canadian businesses in a way that you don't have to be an atmospheric scientist to understand.

The objective of this demo is to show how ConvectAlert's HailNow Alert Service works. The service is just one of the ways ConvectAlert aims to reduce severe weather damage for businesses, however it's fundamental to providing advance warning of incoming hailstorms, allowing businesses to activate severe weather plans and reduce preventable hail damage.

July 13, 2025 was a typical summer day in Southern Alberta, with warm and humid conditions, leading weather forecasters to anticipate a risk for severe thunderstorms roughly from Calgary down towards the Montana border, as is shown in the map above. While it wasn't predicted to be an especially dangerous day for thunderstorms, weather models were in very good agreement about severe thunderstorms occurring somewhere within the Calgary-Lethbridge corridor.

Our alert service operates by continuously monitoring real-time radar data and applying our detection algorithm to identify storms that meet specific criteria for hail production potential. When a storm is detected that exceeds our predefined thresholds for creating alert polygons, the system begins tracking the storm's movement and characteristics. The system issues actual alerts when the storm's intensity and predicted path indicate a high probability of significant hail impact on protected areas, allowing businesses and property owners to take protective action with sufficient lead time.

The triggering thresholds for creating polygons are based on a combination of radar reflectivity values, storm structure indicators, and environmental parameters that suggest the storm is capable of producing hail. For actually issuing alerts, the system requires that the storm not only meets the polygon creation criteria but also shows sustained intensity and a predicted path that intersects with areas of interest, ensuring that alerts are only sent when there is a genuine threat.

This image shows the actual map view from the July 13, 2025 storm as it approached Calgary. At this time the hailstorm was still in its early stages of development north of Cochrane and wasn't producing significant damaging hail impacts yet.

Let's assume you have a business at the location shown in Beddington Heights on the map. You'd likely receive a text message from ConvectAlert just after 7:00pm containing a link that'd send you to this page. Once on the alert page, you can interact with the map to more clearly see where your business stands in relation to the potential hailstorm impact areas.

Upon receiving this information, a business may decide to implement its severe weather action plan. This could include preventative measures such as moving unsheltered vehicles indoors, offsite, or alerting staff of impending hail risk.

• Car dealerships: Dealerships using the HailNow alerting system can use the advance notice to deploy temporary car covers to protect vehicles from hail damage.
• Aviation businesses: Aircraft operators can stow, cover, or move aircraft from at-risk areas.
• Outdoor events: Earlier warning of approaching storms allows event organizers to activate thunderstorm protocols sooner, allowing for safer and more timely action to protect attendees and equipment.
• Construction companies: Activities like concrete pours can be postponed well in advance of approaching storms, additionally hail-sensitive equipment and materials can be moved to reduce hail damages.

Higher-quality weather alerts has many applications across many industries which suffer impacts from severe weather. In many cases simply having 15 extra minutes of advance warning can have a significant impact on the types and degree of action that can be taken to reduce hail damage, or prevent it altogether.

Our HailNow Alert Service takes a new approach to weather alerts, providing more accurate, precise and timely notifications than traditional weather providers. Rather than making guesses based off vague, imprecise publicly available weather forecasts, ConvectAlert provides businesses with professional and actionable weather information, without being overly technical.

HailNow alerts can be tailored for different levels of protection and business needs, whether that's critical alerts only, or alerts days in advance of severe weather potential, or both. We recommend the highest level of protection for businesses such as car dealerships or aircraft operators which may suffer millions in dollars in preventable damages from a single hailstorm. Lower levels of protection may be suitable for businesses willing to take more risk, or those requiring only basic levels of protection.