Williston Forensic Weather & Hail Impact Report

Look, I’ve been replacing roofs in this part of Coastal Carolina for over twenty years, and I can tell you without a doubt that Williston gets hammered in a way folks inland just don’t understand. We sit right in that sweet spot where the warm Gulf Stream air collides with cooler continental fronts, and that’s a recipe for those sudden, violent supercell storms that seem to pop up out of nowhere, especially from late April through June, and then again in September and October. It’s not just the frequency, either—it’s the way the storms roll in off the Pamlico Sound with nothing to break them up. That flat, open water gives the wind a straight, unimpeded runway, so by the time it hits your neighborhood, you’re getting gusts that can easily top 70 or 80 miles an hour, and those aren’t just knocking over lawn furniture—they’re lifting shingles right off the deck.

And the hail, well, that’s the sneaky one. Because of our humidity, the updrafts in these storms are incredibly strong, which means hailstones get tossed up and down in the cloud multiple times before they finally fall. That process creates these dense, jagged balls of ice—not the little pea-sized stuff, but often golf ball or even baseball sized—that come down at a steep angle, driven by that same wind. When that happens, it’s not just a cosmetic issue; the impact bruises the asphalt, knocking the granules loose and exposing the mat underneath to the sun. You might not see a leak for six months, but the roof’s lifespan has already been cut in half. Trust me, I’ve pulled off plenty of “newer” roofs around here that looked fine from the street but were completely compromised underneath, all because of one bad storm that rolled through in the middle of the night.