Houston Forensic Weather & Hail Impact Report

Look, I know it might seem like I’m just trying to sell you a new roof, but I’ve been patching up homes in this area for over twenty years, and I can tell you firsthand that Houston is a unique beast when it comes to weather. We’re sitting right here on the upper Texas Gulf Coast, which means we’re basically a bullseye for two completely different kinds of storms. You’ve got your springtime supercells that roll in from the west, and those things can drop hail the size of golf balls before you even get the kids inside. But then, starting in June, we get those slow-moving tropical systems and random afternoon thunderstorms that just stall right over the city. The heat from all that concrete and asphalt in the metro area actually fuels these storms, making them taller and angrier than they’d be out in the country, and that’s when the straight-line winds really start screaming.

What most folks don’t realize is that our geography works against us, too. We’re flat as a pancake, so there’s absolutely nothing to break up the wind’s momentum—a gust can travel fifty miles without hitting a hill or a tree line, and it hits your roof with the same force it had when it started. And because we’re so close to the Gulf, the air is thick with humidity, which makes the hailstones wetter and heavier. Those big, soggy chunks of ice don’t just bounce off your shingles; they hit them like a hammer, bruising the matting underneath and cracking the granules. Then the wind, even if it’s just a 40-mile-an-hour gust, gets under those damaged edges and peels them back like a sardine can. It’s a one-two punch that you just don’t see in drier climates, and it’s why I’m always telling my neighbors to check their roofs after every big blow, not just the ones that make the news.