Highlands Forensic Weather & Hail Impact Report

Look, I’ve been roofing this area for over twenty years, and if there’s one thing I tell every homeowner in Highlands, it’s that your roof takes a beating that most folks don’t see coming. We sit right in that sweet spot between the Gulf and the Piney Woods, and that flat, open terrain does us no favors. When those spring squall lines roll in off the coast—usually starting in March and ramping up through May—they don’t have any hills or tree lines to break them up. The wind just screams across those rice fields and pastures, and by the time it hits your neighborhood, it’s got a full head of steam. I’ve seen straight-line winds here that’ll rip shingles clean off like they’re nothing, and it’s not even a tornado. It’s just that relentless, horizontal push that comes with a solid thunderstorm cell.

And hail? That’s the sneaky one. We get these supercell storms that pop up in the late afternoon, especially in April and May, and they’ll drop hail the size of golf balls or bigger right on top of us. The problem is the hail here isn’t just big—it’s often driven by those same 60 to 70 mile-per-hour gusts, so it’s not falling straight down. It’s slamming into your roof at an angle, which means it’s not just bruising the shingles; it’s scouring the granules off and cracking the fiberglass mat underneath. I’ve walked roofs in Highlands where the hail damage looks like someone took a hammer to every single tab, and the worst part is, you won’t see it from the ground. By the time fall rolls around and we get those cooler northers, the damage is already done, and that’s when the leaks start showing up. You’re not just dealing with a storm—you’re dealing with a season of them, and your roof is the first thing that takes the hit.