Storm-season reading for people who own, fix and insure roofs

Why a blog built on weather records

Most storm talk after a bad week is secondhand: hail sizes grow in the retelling, and a forecast gets remembered as a promise. The federal weather agencies publish something better: definitions, measured gusts, surveyed damage paths and after-action reports written by the forecasters themselves. Those documents are free, but they are long, and they are written for meteorologists.

The articles here translate them for two readers. If you own a house, you get the plain meaning of a warning, a hail size or a hurricane report, and what it does and does not tell you about your roof. If you repair roofs, you get the same facts in a form you can put in front of a customer without overselling.

Nothing on this site is a forecast. For what is happening right now, the National Roofing Directory's Storm Center lists the active National Weather Service alerts by state.

The articles

What severe hail means for a roof

The Weather Service draws its severe line at one inch, the size of a quarter, and it has used that line nationwide only since a 2010 service change that retired the old penny-size threshold. The article walks through a Weather Service size-comparison chart, what forecast offices say about damage at each step, why stones fall faster as they grow, and why smaller "sub-severe" hail still matters to asphalt shingles according to research by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety. It closes with the state-by-state hail counts NOAA's database holds for 2016 through 2025. Read what severe hail means.

Derechos, explained

A derecho is not a tornado and not an ordinary thunderstorm. The Storm Prediction Center revised its definition in 2025, and the new wording is specific about length, gust strength and the kind of storm system that qualifies. The article takes that definition apart, then follows two storms through the official record: the June 29, 2012 system that crossed from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic, and the August 10, 2020 storm whose peak winds the Weather Service office in the Quad Cities estimated at around 140 mph in southwest Cedar Rapids. It ends with the damage patterns those reports describe, from trees through roofs to whole roof sections lifted off. Read derechos, explained.

What Helene and Milton showed about roofs

Two 2024 hurricanes, two very different lessons. The National Hurricane Center's report on Helene documents a fast-moving storm whose gusts reached far inland, and a list of direct deaths dominated by freshwater flooding and falling trees. Its report on Milton documents 45 tornadoes on land across the Florida peninsula in a single day and a stadium whose fabric roof was torn away. The article stays with what those reports document, then draws out what each one means for a roof and for the people working on one afterward. Read the 2024 hurricane lessons.

Before storm season: a roof checklist

Each hazard has its own calendar. The Hurricane Center publishes the Atlantic season dates, while the Storm Prediction Center's tornado FAQ describes a tornado season that moves north from late winter into midsummer. The checklist lines those calendars up with the preparation steps published by IBHS and the federal Ready.gov campaign, so you know what to do and when to have it done. Read the pre-season checklist.

How to read the numbers on this blog

Two kinds of storm numbers appear here, and they are not interchangeable.

• Preliminary reports. The Storm Prediction Center's daily lists are gathered automatically from local storm reports sent by Weather Service offices, and the center says on its frequently asked questions page that the list is preliminary and likely incomplete for any given event.
• The official record. The same SPC page points to NOAA's Storm Events Database as the source of official, final data, noting that it takes a few months to compile. When an article says the database "records" a number of events, that is where the number comes from, and the window is stated.

A count of hail events is a count of reports that reached the record, not a count of damaged roofs. The articles say so where it matters.

Where the National Roofing Directory comes in

Weather records tell you what fell. They cannot tell you whether a particular roof failed, and they cannot fix one. When an article ends with a next step, it points to a National Roofing Directory resource: the storm damage roof repair guide for the first days after a storm, the encyclopedia entry on the roof insurance claim process when a claim is involved, and the directory's find-a-roofer pages when you need a contractor in your state.

Frequently asked questions

Is Roofer.blog a weather forecast?

No. The articles explain definitions, past storms and seasonal patterns from official records. For active watches and warnings, go to the National Weather Service or the National Roofing Directory's Storm Center, which lists active alerts by state.

Where do the storm numbers come from?

From NOAA and its agencies: the Storm Prediction Center, the National Hurricane Center, local Weather Service offices and NOAA's Storm Events Database. Each number is linked to the page or report it came from.

Who are the articles written for?

Homeowners who want to understand what a storm meant for their roof, and roofing contractors who want sourced facts they can share with customers. The same article serves both, because the record is the same.

Can a hail report tell me whether my roof was damaged?

Not by itself. A report is a point on a map, often one spotter or one app submission, and the Storm Prediction Center describes its lists as preliminary. An inspection of the roof is what answers the question.