'A sleeper problem': Ontario research team studies hailstorms in Olds, Alta.

Researchers from Ontario are spending their summer in Olds, Alta., to take a closer look at the province's hail systems.

The Northern Hail Project (NHP) aims to survey the formation of hailstorms and advance storm prediction techniques to mitigate the impacts of hail damage across Canada. The project consists of 12 summer students and staff.

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The project began in 2022 with researchers from Western University as a nod to the successful Northern Tornadoes Project, which was also founded by the Ontario school.

Julian Brimelow, the executive director for NHP, told CTV News Edmonton hail has become "a sleeper problem" in recent years.

"Hail is becoming increasingly problematic and very costly as illustrated by the Calgary hailstorm (in 2020). It was our first billion-dollar hailstorm," said Brimelow. "This is an opportunity for us to do a grassroots approach where we collect data in the field.

"Ultimately, we'd like to improve warnings, give people a heads up and give more detailed forecasts and warnings about the hail."

NHP researchers use drones equipped with thermal cameras to map the damage of an area where a hailstorm occurred, measure the size of the hailstones, retrieve them and collect data from ongoing storms until they die down.

"We've collected a lot of data, but we're still in the process of quality controlling that data and processing it," said Brimelow. "We are going to be releasing a publicly accessible data portal where people can go in, look at maps in a user-friendly interface and look at the data for their own uses."

So far, researchers have collected more than 2,000 hailstones since May and will continue to collect hail data and hailstones in Alberta until mid-August.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Nicole Weisberg.