Lavon Forensic Weather & Hail Impact Report

Look, I’ve been replacing roofs out here for over fifteen years, and I can tell you Lavon gets hit harder than folks realize. We’re sitting right in that open stretch of blackland prairie between Dallas and the lake, so there’s nothing to break up the wind. When those spring supercells roll in from the southwest—usually March through May—they’re still organizing, and they tend to drop their worst hail right on top of us. I’ve seen golf-ball and even baseball-sized stones come down in straight lines, not scattered. And because the ground here is so flat and open, the wind doesn’t tumble or slow down; it just slams straight into your roofline, lifting shingles from the edges before the hail even gets a chance to bruise the middle.

What makes it worse is the sudden temperature swings we get in late fall, too. One day it’s 80 degrees, the next a cold front drops 30 degrees in a few hours, and that constant expanding and contracting loosens the sealant strips on your shingles. So by the time a November thunderstorm blows through—and we do get those nasty ones—your roof is already vulnerable. The hail doesn’t have to be huge to do damage then; even quarter-sized stones can knock the granules loose, and once that happens, the sun bakes the mat brittle. Then the next windstorm peels it right off. I’ve walked too many driveways in Lavon where the homeowner says, “It was just a little storm,” but the damage is already done underneath. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.