Ottine Forensic Weather & Hail Impact Report

Look, I’ve been roofing here for over twenty years, and I can tell you Ottine gets hit from a perfect storm of bad luck, geographically speaking. We sit right in that little pocket between the Hill Country and the coastal plains, which means when a front pushes down from the northwest, it doesn’t have any real hills to break it up. That flat, open ranch land acts like a wind tunnel, and those springtime supercells just barrel across it, picking up speed and spinning. By the time they hit our side of the county, we’re not dealing with a straight-line gust—we’re dealing with a freight train that can peel shingles right off a deck like they’re stickers.

And it’s not just the wind, it’s the hail that comes with it. Our severe season really ramps up in April and May, but we’ve seen monster hailstorms roll through as late as June and even early fall. Those storms love to stall right over the river bottoms near the San Marcos, and when they do, they drop hail that’s not those little pea-sized pellets—we’re talking golf ball and sometimes baseball-sized chunks. That size of ice, coming down at a sideways angle with that wind behind it, doesn’t just dent a shingle; it fractures the fiberglass mat underneath. You might not see a leak for six months, but the roof’s integrity is already gone, and the next hot summer day will bake those cracks right open. That’s why I always tell folks here, if you hear that hail hitting your skylight, you better call me before the next rain, not after.