Hail Storm Hammers CA Stone Fruit Growers
April 12, 2012 
For what seemed like an eternity at about 2 p.m. Wednesday, one of the heaviest hail storms that people in California’s San Joaquin Valley can recall wreaked havoc in the heart of stone fruit country.
As the quarter-sized hail came down, hail cannons thundered in the orchards near Highway 99. “It was like a war zone,” said grower Harold McClarty of HMC Farms in Kingsburg.
What was unusual about the storm, which covered a swath of about five miles north of Visalia, was its consistency. Most hail storms don’t cover a huge area and are more of a spotty hit-or-miss type, said McClarty.
“But this was wide and deep and took anything in its path,” he said. “Grapes, cherries — anything in its path will be ruined because it stripped leaves and everything else.”
The storm, which lasted about 20 to 30 minutes, left hail from 2 inches to 3 inches deep in places, said Dean Thonesen of Sunwest Fruit Co. in Parlier. “Some areas were hit much worse than others,” he said. “The industry suffered a lot of damage, but it’s going to take three to four days to assess.”
Thonesen said that one reason they don’t know the full extent of the damage is that the storms aren’t done yet. More heavy rainfall, which is unusual this time of year as California’s rainy season generally winds down in March, is in the forecast. More rain is expected today, and on Friday, an even bigger storm than the one that hit Wednesday is a possibility.
Whatever happens later this week, McClarty called yesterday’s hail storm a “game changer.” A lot of fruit was lost from what was predicted to be reasonable-sized, manageable crop.
“We’ve still got a ton of fruit left, but where the hail hit — well, it was big hail and there was a substantial amount,” he said. “But it’s farming, and it’s what we do.”
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