TRR RoofingColorado hail damage guide
Hail Alley homeowner guide

Colorado Hail Damage: What It Does and What to Do Next

Hail is part of life in Colorado, and so is the damage it leaves behind. This site explains what a hailstorm can do to your home, how to find the damage and how to get it fixed with as little hassle as possible.

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Colorado's Front Range sits in or right next to Hail Alley, the region where Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming meet, which sees some of the most frequent large hail in North America. Parts of the area are commonly cited as getting seven to nine hail days a year. Hail season generally runs from mid-April through mid-August, peaking in late spring and early summer, and most storms arrive in the afternoon or evening. The May 8, 2017 storm that pounded the Denver area is among the most expensive insured catastrophes in Colorado history. Hail is also a big reason homeowners insurance costs so much here: the Colorado Division of Insurance found that hail makes up an average of 26% to 54% of homeowners premiums, depending on the county, and about half of the premium along the Front Range and Eastern Plains.

Simplified map of Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska. A red dashed zone labeled Hail Alley surrounds the corner where the three states meet, a line of mountain peaks marks the Front Range running north to south through Colorado, and Denver sits just east of the mountains at the southern edge of the zone.
Hail Alley centers on the corner where Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska meet, and Colorado's Front Range sits in or right next to it. The edges of the shaded zone are approximate.

Geography is a big part of the reason. Moist air flowing in from the plains is pushed upward as the land rises toward the mountains, feeding tall thunderstorms with updrafts strong enough to hold hailstones aloft while they grow. And because so much of Colorado sits a mile or more above sea level, hail has a shorter fall through warm air and less time to melt before it lands.

A dark green-gray thunderstorm with heavy rain and hail falling from its base moves over a suburban neighborhood of single-family homes, with low mountains on the horizon.
Illustrative image. Summer thunderstorms like this one can drop hail across an entire neighborhood in a few minutes.

The damage is easy to miss. From the driveway, a battered roof often looks fine. Missing granules, bruised shingles and hairline cracks are hard to see from the ground, and a damaged roof can keep the rain out for months before it starts to leak. By the time a stain shows up on the ceiling, the storm is long forgotten and your insurance deadlines may be closing in.

The guides below cover what hail does to a house, how to check for damage safely, how a Colorado insurance claim works and whether an impact-resistant roof is worth the upgrade.

The roofing team we recommend

When hail hits your home, we recommend calling Truman Roofing. Their team helps Colorado homeowners and businesses with hail damage inspections, roof repairs, roof replacements and estimates, and they make the claim and repair process simple from the first inspection to the finished roof.

This site is affiliated with Truman Roofing, and we think they're one of the best in the business. If you like to know how a project will unfold before you pick up the phone, read what to expect when working with Truman Roofing.

Get your hail damage handled the easy way

After a storm, we recommend Truman Roofing: one of the best in the business at finding hail damage, writing thorough estimates and getting your roof fixed without the hassle.

Visit Truman Roofing