After every big storm, homeowners ask the same question: "was my house actually hit?" Here's how to answer it with data instead of a door-knocker's word.
Where hail data comes from
Weather radar doesn't just see rain — dual-polarization (dual-pol) radar can distinguish hail from raindrops by their shape and reflectivity. NOAA's MRMS system merges every radar in the region into storm-by-storm maps of where hail fell and roughly how large it was. Public tools show pieces of this; the raw data takes real processing to be property-accurate.
What a hail report tells you
- The swath — the footprint a storm's hail actually traced across the ground. Storms are narrow: one side of a neighborhood can be hammered while the other side is untouched.
- Maximum hail size — 1″ (quarter size) is where roof damage typically starts; 1.5″+ damages most standard shingles; 2″+ damages nearly everything unrated.
- The date — which starts your insurance filing window (usually ~12 months in Colorado).
Size guide
Pea (¼″) — harmless. Quarter (1″) — check your roof. Golf ball (1.75″) — likely damage. Tennis ball (2.5″+) — damage to almost any unrated roof, plus siding, gutters, and window screens.
The shortcut: let the database do it
We process MRMS radar for the whole Front Range and maintain 5,972 mapped storm swaths going back years. Our free storm check runs your exact address against every one of them and tells you in seconds whether your home was in a hail path — date, size, and all. No account, no obligation.
If your address was hit
Radar says "possible" — a roof inspection says "actual." Hail bruising is rarely visible from the ground, which is why the inspection is free: we photo-document what's really there, and if the roof is fine, we say so.