Recorded events
Hail and wind recorded near Dana Point
Radar has picked up hail-bearing storm cells within ten miles of Dana Point on two days: 5 October 2021 and 10 September 2021. Here is what was recorded, and what is worth checking as a result.
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Hail
The most recent detection was on 5 October 2021, about 5 years ago. Radar sized the largest stone in that cell at about 0.75 inches, below the one-inch line, which usually means bruising and granule loss rather than obvious damage. The nearest cell was about 9.7 miles away, which is close enough to be worth checking and far enough that it may have missed the house entirely.
| Date | Largest stone sized by radar | Nearest cell | Cells that day |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 October 2021 | 0.75 in | 9.7 mi | 1 |
| 10 September 2021 | 1.0 in | 8.2 mi | 2 |
Wind
Over 5 years of daily records at this location, the highest modelled gust was about 54 mph, below the 58 mph severe threshold but well into the range that finds anything already lifted or loose. There were 27 days above 39 mph and 10 above 45 mph in that period, concentrated in January, February, and March.
| Date | Peak gust |
|---|---|
| 18 February 2026 | 48 mph |
| 14 March 2024 | 54 mph |
| 21 March 2023 | 46 mph |
| 1 March 2023 | 47 mph |
| 25 February 2023 | 54 mph |
| 12 April 2022 | 48 mph |
| 14 December 2021 | 46 mph |
| 11 October 2021 | 44 mph |
What to check afterwards
What the street is doing
Neighbourhoods built at once wear out at once, so a run of work on one street is often a cohort reaching its age rather than a storm. Both are worth knowing about; they are not the same thing.
Flashing, chimneys and skylights
Penetrations are where a roof is joined rather than laid, and joins fail first. After a wind event they are the first thing worth having looked at properly.
What landed on it
A branch across the roof does damage twice: once on impact and once by sitting there holding water against the covering. Get it off, photograph where it was, and look at what is underneath before deciding it was nothing.
Granules where they should not be
A cupful of granules at the bottom of a downspout after a storm is not proof of impact — roofs shed granules as they age — but a sudden change is worth photographing with the date on it. What matters is the difference from last month, which is why photographing a sound roof now is not a wasted hour.
The ridge and the edges
Wind does not lift a roof from the middle. It gets under an edge — the rake, the eave, the ridge cap — and peels inward from there. Those are the places to look at from the ground with binoculars after a wind event, and they are the places a marginal roof gives up first.
How the deadline works
Policies require prompt notice of a loss and set an outer limit on how long after the event damage can be reported. That limit runs from the date of the storm, not from the day the damage was noticed — which is why the dates above are worth writing down somewhere you will find them again.
None of which means filing on every storm. It means knowing the date, having the damage looked at, and then deciding — in that order.
How a roof insurance claim actually works, step by step
Sources, and what they can and cannot tell you
Hail detections come from NOAA NCEI’s Severe Weather Data Inventory (NEXRAD product nx3hail) within 10 miles of Dana Point. Radar sizes hail in a storm cell; it does not observe what landed on any particular roof. Gust figures are daily maxima from the ERA5 reanalysis archive at this city’s coordinates, which is a model of the weather rather than a reading from an instrument in the neighbourhood. Both are useful for dates and for scale, and neither is evidence about your roof. Last refreshed 2026-08-31.
Questions after a storm
Where do the storm dates on this site come from?
They are public federal and reanalysis data for this city’s coordinates rather than anything we measured. Radar sizes hail in a cloud; a reanalysis models wind. They tell you when something happened near here, which is exactly the thing an insurer asks for first and the thing that is hard to reconstruct later.
How long do I have to report storm damage?
Less time than most people assume, and the clock runs from the date of the event rather than from the day you noticed. Policies require prompt notice and set an outer limit on reporting. That is the single most common reason late-discovered damage is denied, and it is why knowing the date of the storm matters.
There was a storm near me. Do I have damage?
There is no way to know from the weather record, and this site does not claim otherwise. Two houses on one street come out of the same night in completely different condition. What a nearby storm gives you is a date and a reason to look — starting with the gutters and vent caps, which dent before shingles mark.
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