Chicota Forensic Weather & Hail Impact Report

Look, I’ve been replacing roofs up here for over twenty years, and if there’s one thing I tell every homeowner in Chicota, it’s that we’re sitting right in the bullseye of two different storm systems. You’ve got the spring squall lines that come roaring up from the south, usually March through May, and they don’t just bring rain—they bring straight-line winds that can hit sixty or seventy miles an hour. But the real kicker is the hail. Because we’re on that flat, open stretch of Red River country, there’s nothing to break up those supercell thunderstorms. They roll in fast, drop golf-ball-sized stones for ten minutes, and then move on, leaving your shingles looking like someone took a hammer to them. I’ve seen brand new roofs get shredded in a single afternoon, and it’s not because the shingles are bad—it’s just that the sheer volume of ice coming down at that angle, combined with the wind lifting the edges, is a one-two punch that’s brutal on any material.

And here’s the thing that catches folks off guard: we don’t just get one bad storm a year. We get a whole season of them, and then again in the fall when those cold fronts clash with the leftover summer heat. That’s when you get the sudden, violent wind gusts that snap tree limbs and peel back flashing like it’s tin foil. The geography doesn’t help, either. We’re in that low-lying basin where the creeks and the river bottom funnel the wind, so a storm that’s just breezy in Paris can be a full-blown gale right here in Chicota. What that means for you is simple: if you’ve got a roof that’s more than ten years old, or if you’ve ever seen a few missing tabs after a storm and thought “it’s fine,” you’re gambling. I’m not trying to scare you, but I’ve pulled off too many roofs where the hail damage was hidden under a layer of old granules, and by the time the leak showed up, the decking was rotten. You want to be the one who calls me after the storm, not the one who calls me six months later with a bucket in the living room.