Cumby Forensic Weather & Hail Impact Report

Look, I’ve been roofing here for over fifteen years, and if there’s one thing I tell every homeowner in Cumby, it’s that we’re sitting right in the bullseye of North Texas hail alley. You see, our little town sits on that flat, open stretch of prairie between Dallas and the Red River, with absolutely nothing to break up the wind. When those spring supercells roll in off the Caprock—usually starting in March and peaking through May—they come screaming across the open fields with nothing to slow them down. The geography here acts like a wind tunnel, and those storms can suddenly drop golf-ball-sized hail on a clear Tuesday afternoon. I’ve pulled shingles off roofs that looked like someone took a shotgun to them, and it’s almost always because the hail came in at a sideways angle, driven by those straight-line winds that we get with every squall line.

And it’s not just the springtime. We get a second nasty round in late October and November when those cold fronts slam into the warm, humid air left over from summer. That’s when you get the real violent stuff—the kind of wind that peels back shingles like they’re stickers, and the hail that’s not just round but jagged and icy. The problem is, most folks around here have those standard three-tab or architectural shingles that are rated for 60 or 70 mph winds, but our gusts routinely hit 80 or 90 during a bad storm. Plus, the constant baking sun in July and August makes the asphalt brittle, so by the time the fall storms hit, that roof is already stressed. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked a property after a storm and seen the damage that wasn’t even visible from the ground—bruised, cracked shingles that are just waiting to leak in the next heavy rain. It’s not a matter of if, but when, and that’s why I always tell my neighbors to get a good look at their roof before the seasons change.