Storm damage
Wind leads, hail is real, and the two arrive in different seasons
Storm damage here is not one thing. It is a spring hail season, a thunderstorm-wind season that peaks alongside it, and a tropical season that follows both — and a roof can be quietly damaged by the first and finished off by the last.
The three kinds of storm this coast gets
- Spring hail
- 89 percent of the hail reports in the dataset behind this site fall between March and June. The largest stone in the window was 2.75″, 16 March 2024 in Fort Bend County, and again 31 May 2024 in Galveston County. Hail bruises the mat, and a bruised mat does not leak immediately.
- Straight-line wind
- Thunderstorm outflow and derechos. The worst day in the extract is May 2024, with 24 damaging-wind reports and a strongest report of 104 miles per hour. This is the ordinary, repeated event that lifts and creases shingles.
- Tropical systems
- Hurricanes and tropical storms, arriving from June onward. Hurricane Beryl crossed the metro in July 2024 and was a region-wide roofing event; Hurricane Harvey in August 2017 was overwhelmingly a rainfall and flooding event, which is to say mostly not a roofing claim at all. Same coast, two storms, two completely different experiences.
One caveat about every storm figure on this site, stated plainly: the NOAA extract behind it carries thunderstorm hail and wind only. Tropical wind is filed under event types it does not include, so for the days Beryl crossed the region the extract holds not a single row. When you look up a ZIP code, you are looking at the thunderstorm record. A hurricane you remember is not missing because it did not happen.
What wind damage looks like
Wind does not usually take a roof off. It lifts, creases and unseals, and most of what it does is invisible from the ground.
- Creasing. A shingle folds back in a gust and lies back down. The crease across the mat is a permanent fracture line even though the shingle looks flat again.
- Unsealing. The adhesive strip that bonds each course to the one below breaks. The shingle is still there and still nailed, but it is now a flap waiting for the next storm — and the route wind-driven rain takes under the course.
- Edge and rake loss. Uplift pressure is highest at the perimeter, which is why wind damage starts at the eaves, the rakes and the ridge rather than the middle of a slope.
- Missing tabs. The obvious one, and usually the last stage rather than the first.
What hail damage looks like
Hail bruises the mat. The signature is a soft, round impact with the granules knocked off and a dent you can feel with a thumb — distinct from blistering, which is a manufacturing artefact, and from ordinary granule loss, which here is mostly sun.
| What you see | What it usually is | How to tell |
|---|---|---|
| Round dark spots with granules missing | Hail bruise | Soft to the touch, random pattern, often with matching dents on soft metals like vents and gutter aprons |
| Small pits with sharp edges | Blistering | Hard edges, no bruise underneath, distributed across the whole slope regardless of exposure |
| Bare patches along the field | Granule loss from age and ultraviolet exposure | Follows water flow paths and the sunniest slopes, worst under valleys and downspout discharge |
| A fold line across a shingle | Wind crease | Lines up along a course, concentrated at edges and rakes |
Soft-metal damage is the tell. Hail large enough to bruise a shingle mat almost always leaves dents on gutters, vent caps and any aluminum on the roof. A roof with claimed hail damage and untouched soft metals is worth a second look.
How the damage gets documented
Establish the date
Storm Check lists what NOAA recorded near your ZIP code and when, and the recorded storm dates page sets out the significant days for the whole service area. That is the starting point for which event is being discussed.
Work out which policy it belongs to
Wind and hail, windstorm, or flood. On designated coastal territory the wind cover may be a separate policy with its own deductible. Getting this right first saves the first week of a claim.
Inspect the whole roof
All slopes, including the ones facing away from the street, plus soft metals, gutters and any collateral on siding and windows.
Photograph everything
Individual defects, wide shots for context, and slope-by-slope coverage. A claim that is only a written opinion has nothing behind it.
Write it down plainly
What was found, on which slope, and what it means for the roof. What an insurer does with that is the insurer's decision.
Nothing on this site can tell you whether a claim will be approved, and anybody who does tell you that is guessing. What documentation does is make sure the decision is made on evidence rather than on a five-minute look from a ladder.
A note on storm chasers
After a named storm or a significant hail day, out-of-state crews work this region door to door, and Texas is one of the easiest places in the country for them to do it because there is no state roofing license to produce. Some are fine. The pattern worth being careful about is the one that asks you to sign something on the doorstep, offers to "cover your deductible", or inspects the roof and finds damage before they have been up there long enough to look at it. Waiving or absorbing a deductible is not a discount; it is a misrepresentation of the loss, and in Texas it is specifically prohibited. How to check out a roofer.
Want to know what is on record for your address before anyone knocks on your door?
Check your ZIP codeOr send the details and we will get an insured local roofer out to look at it.
Request a free inspectionHow soon after a storm should I have the roof looked at?
Sooner is better, mainly because unsealed shingles are far easier to identify before they have had a few weeks of ordinary weather to lie back down. There is no need to rush into a decision, but there is a reason to get it documented — and after a regional event, the queue only gets longer.
The neighbors are all getting new roofs. Does that mean I need one?
It means the same storm passed over your house, which is a reason to look. It is not evidence about your roof. Damage from a single storm cell can vary noticeably between one street and the next, and hail in particular falls in narrow swaths.
Can you tell me if my insurance will pay?
No, and nobody outside your insurer can. What we can do is document what is there against the dates NOAA recorded, so the conversation with your carrier is about evidence.
How long do I have to report it?
Your policy sets the requirement, and most policies expect prompt notice rather than naming a period. There is one published Texas deadline worth knowing: if your wind cover is a TWIA policy, the state windstorm insurer states you have one year from the storm to file. Windstorm cover and TWIA covers who that applies to.
What if the damage is from a storm a few years ago?
It is still worth documenting, because damage that has been sitting there is damage the next storm will find, and because it changes whether this is a claim conversation or a straightforward repair and replacement conversation. Older losses are ordinarily dealt with as work rather than as claims.
All work is performed by insured local roofing professionals. Texas does not license roofing contractors at state level, so insurance, references and a written scope are what there is to check.