Gary Overgaard was praying for rain a couple of weeks ago. Now he's praying for it to stop.
"I've been flooded twice in three days with a hailstorm in between," said Overgaard, who farms corn and soybeans on 650 acres near Magnolia, Minn., just east of Luverne.
The intense rain has flooded hundreds of farm fields across southern Minnesota, and growers were calling their insurance agents, checking their crops and watching the skies Thursday as rain continued to drench much of the area.
Overgaard said about 150 acres of his fields are underwater and will likely be a total loss. "How much damage there's going to be, we won't know till things start drying up and the sun comes out," he said.
But assessing the crop damage won't take that long in some of the hardest-hit areas.
Mike Crowley, an AgStar crop insurance agent based in Worthington, said he has never seen such severe hail damage in his 32-year career. The worst stretch is about 21 miles long and 14 miles wide in northeastern Rock County and northwestern Nobles County, he said.
"You take 60 and 70 mile-per-hour wind and even dime-sized hail will cut off the plants like a buzz saw," Crowley said.
Other areas in southwestern Minnesota that escaped hail damage are inundated with water, Crowley said. "We went from the land of 10,000 lakes to 20,000 here in this area alone," he said, referring to the standing water on many farm fields.
