Von Ormy Forensic Weather & Hail Impact Report

Look, I’ve been replacing roofs out here for over twenty years, and Von Ormy sits right in that sweet spot where the weather just seems to line up against you. We’re tucked down in the southern edge of Bexar County, where the terrain is flat and wide open, so there’s nothing to break up those strong south winds that come rolling up from the Gulf. When a spring front pushes down from the Hill Country and collides with that warm, moist air, the atmosphere goes crazy right over our heads. Those storms don’t just pass through—they stall and spin, and that’s when you get those marble-to-baseball sized hailstones coming down sideways at 60 miles an hour. The angle of the wind drives the hail into your shingles instead of letting them bounce off, and that’s what shreds the granules and leaves those dark, bruised spots that turn into leaks a year later.

And it’s not just the springtime, either. We get a second nasty window in late summer and early fall when those tropical systems push up from the coast. Even if we don’t get the full hurricane, the outer bands bring these intense, short-lived supercells that drop hail like crazy. The problem is, our homes here are mostly built with that standard 3-tab or architectural shingle, which is fine for a normal rain, but it’s no match for a direct hit. I’ve seen hail punch clean through to the decking, and the wind can peel a whole section of shingles off like a banana if it catches the edge just right. Plus, with all that open ranch land around, there’s nothing to slow the gusts down before they slam into your roofline. So when you hear that hail warning on your phone, don’t just shrug it off—that’s the sound of your next insurance claim hitting your driveway.