GREELEY, Colo. — Tuesday night's storm left behind a mess of hail and flooding in Greeley, and the biggest impacts may have been on agriculture.
Fields of carrots and onions were decimated by the storm, leaving farmers questioning what exactly to do next.
"We actually weren't expecting any storm last night and then just Colorado weather, you know, kind of came across the mountains," said Jordan Hungenberg, who grows onions, carrots and corn in Greeley. "It was supposed to go by us and then the wind shifted, and it came right back with hail and a lot of rain."
Hungenberg told Denver7 he drove out to some of his fields Tuesday night, shocked by the inches of water pooling in some of them and across the roadway, as well.
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He took the below video on Tuesday evening.
"We had a lot of crops growing. We had onions here, we had organic carrots... the corn should recover," he said.
Hungenberg said many of his carrot fields were wiped out by Tuesday night's storm. At least one of his onion fields was also destroyed.
"Onions — you can't replant," he said. "The hard part is you're up against the clock in Colorado."
Despite losing so many of his crops in one night, Hungenberg said all he can do is remain hopeful the sun will come out in the next couple of days and some of his crops will actually survive.
"We have to gauge where the damage is and it's just hard to swallow," he said.
Down the street from some of his crops is Trinity Farm, where the concern was more focused on the animals they keep.
"They tried to find shelter. The moms will definitely try to find their babies, keep them close to them," said Ellen Halmagyi, whose daughter and son-in-law own the farm. "Sometimes they'll stash them underneath the hay bunk but usually they just try to take as best care they can of them."
Both Halmagyi and Hungenberg are hoping for the same thing: that more rainy weather doesn't roll in Wednesday night and both the animals and the crops get a break.
"We're trying to stay optimistic and we'll see what we have as the weekend comes in if the sun helps us out at all," Hungenberg said.
Learn more about the localized flooding from Tuesday evening in our story below.
