Shepherd Forensic Weather & Hail Impact Report

Look, I’ve been replacing roofs in this county for over twenty years, and I can tell you Shepherd doesn’t get lucky when it comes to spring storms. We sit right in that corridor where the Gulf moisture comes rolling up from the southeast and slams into the cooler air dropping down from the Panhandle. That collision doesn’t just give us a little rain—it stacks up those supercell thunderstorms that spin and drop hail the size of golf balls, sometimes bigger. And because we’re so flat and open out here, with all that ranch land and the river bottoms, there’s nothing to break up the wind. A straight-line gust can come screaming across those fields at sixty or seventy miles an hour, and it hits your roof like a freight train with no trees to shield it.

The timing is the real kicker, too. Our worst months are usually March through May, right when everyone’s thinking about Easter and planting. Those storms don’t roll through politely at noon either—they’ll hit at two in the morning when you’re asleep, and by the time you wake up, the damage is done. The hail beats the shingles until the granules are stripped bare, and then the wind peels those exposed tabs right off the decking. I’ve seen brand-new architectural shingles on homes just outside of town look like they’d been shot with a shotgun after one bad Tuesday in April. It’s not a matter of *if* you’ll need a roof out here, it’s a matter of *when*—and if you’ve got a steep pitch or older felt paper, you’re just rolling the dice every single spring.