Red Deer Minute: Crop Yields, Giant Hail, and Crime Severity Index

Red Deer Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Red Deer politics

This Week In Red Deer:

• There are no Council or Committee meetings this week at City Hall. Must be nice!
  
  
• Red Deer restaurants Cilantro and Chive, Memphis Blues BBQ, Occam’s Razor, and WestLake Grill are taking part in Alberta on the Plate, a province-wide dine-around festival. The festival is intended to showcase Alberta agriculture and highlight local restaurants. It runs from August 12th - 21st.
  
  
• As part of the Year of the Garden activities, the city is hosting Spot the Park, a scavenger hunt designed to encourage Red Deerians to explore nearby outdoor spaces. Each Monday in August, the City will post some hints on social media about the week’s secret location. If you figure out where the location is, go take a selfie there and upload the photo using the submission form on the City’s website for a chance to win prizes from local businesses.

Last Week In Red Deer:

• The latest Alberta Crop Report was released, showing higher-than-average yield expectations for Central Alberta farmers. On average, the report said that yields would be 116% of the 10-year average. Canola, however, is a notable exception, sitting much lower than the 10-year average due to variable crop qualities and field-specific pod formation issues.
  
  
• Severe weather did damage some crops in Central Alberta though, as a summer storm led to massive hail with stones ranging from pea-sized to as large as eggs and softballs. One researcher suggested that Canada’s largest recorded hailstone fell during the storm. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured, but several motorists sustained vehicle damage, including a Red Deer driver who said the hail sounded like gunfire.
  
  
• Statistics Canada released the latest Crime Severity Index numbers and Red Deer’s score remained relatively similar to previous years. The city ranked 14th worst among 326 police services across Canada last year, 17th in 2020, and 15th in 2019. City Councillor Lawrence Lee said that residents are so committed to the safety of their community that they place a high volume of calls to police, which keeps crime reporting levels high but is ultimately, in his opinion, a good thing. We'll have what he's having!

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