US Storm Damage Roofing Leads: NOAA hail and wind reports, then the roofing permits that follow

Where roofs are being replaced right now, how many more than before the storm, and who is doing the work. Official NOAA storm reports joined to official city permit registers, for 12 US cities.

A hail storm is the best roofing lead there is, and the companies that sell it (HailTrace, Hail Recon) charge $300 to $500 a month per city for a map. This Actor gives you the two public records behind that map, joined:

1. Every severe hail and wind report the National Weather Service logged around the city, with size, speed, location, county and distance to the city centre, from NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.
2. Every roofing permit the city issued since the first storm, with the storm that explains it, how many days after, how far from the report, and how many roofs that contractor has pulled permits for since the storm.

And one number per city that says whether the storm moved anything: roofing permits after the storm against the same number of days before it.

What a run looks like

Chicago, IL: 52 reports (0 hail, 52 wind), first 2026-08-09, last 2026-08-12
Chicago, IL: 584 roofing permits since 2026-08-09 by 301 contractors, 471 in the 45 days before (+24%)
Austin, TX: 3 reports (0 hail, 3 wind), first 2026-08-27
Austin, TX: 111 roofing permits since 2026-08-27 by 78 contractors, 91 in the 27 days before (+22%)

Measured on 23 September 2026 over the previous 45 days. New Orleans in the same window: 11 reports including 1-inch hail, 201 roofing permits after against 214 before (-6%). Mesa: 20 wind reports, 24 permits after against 43 before (-44%). The number is reported either way; a storm that did not move the permits is worth knowing too.

Who runs this on a loop

• Roofing companies and storm chasers: the day after a storm, the reports say which side of the city got hit; two weeks later the permits say which streets are already replacing roofs, and which competitors are pulling ten permits a week there.
• Building material suppliers: the contractors with the most roofing permits since the storm are the ones ordering shingles this month, by name.
• Public adjusters and insurance: hail size and wind speed on the record, with the NWS office that logged it, next to the permits that followed.
• Anyone selling to roofers: "you pulled 7 permits since the 11 August storm" opens a conversation that a cold list does not.

What every row carries

Two kinds of rows, told apart by type.

storm, one per NOAA report within the radius: date, timeUtc, kind (hail or wind), hailInches, windMph (absent when the damage was reported without a measured speed, windMeasured: false), location, county, reportState, latitude, longitude, distanceToCityKm, comments (the spotter's note, e.g. "Golf ball size hail, measured"), nwsOffice, sourceUrl (that day's NOAA report page).

permit, one per roofing permit issued since the first storm, everything the permit register publishes (permitNumber, issuedDate, address, zip, latitude, longitude, valuation, description, contractorName, contractorPhone where the city publishes it, contractorLicense, trade, leadScore), plus the storm join: stormDate, daysAfterStorm, stormKind, stormHailInches, stormWindMph, stormLocation, stormDistanceKm (from the permit address to the nearest earlier report, when the permit has coordinates), contractorPermitsAfterStorm, cityPermitsAfterStorm, cityPermitsBeforeStorm, cityStormsInWindow, cityStrongestHailInches.

The run summary (RUN_SUMMARY in the key-value store) has the per-city numbers: reports, strongest hail and wind, first and last storm date, permits after and before, permitLiftPercent, contractors active after the storm.

Input

• cities: any of Chicago, Cincinnati, Austin, Mesa, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Orlando, New York, Seattle, Everett, Somerville, Marin County. Empty means all.
• lastNDays (30): how far back to look for storms. Permits are read from the first storm to today, plus the same number of days before it for the baseline.
• radiusKm (40): a NOAA report is a point inside a hail swath 10 to 30 km wide, not its edge, so the radius is measured to the city centre.
• minHailInches (1) and minWindMph (58): NOAA only logs hail of 1 inch and above and wind of 58 mph and above, so the defaults keep everything; 1.75 (golf ball) is what insurers pay out on. Wind damage reported without a measured speed always counts.
• withPermits (true): off gives the storm reports only.
• trades: roofing by default; add solar, hvac or remodel to see what else a storm pulls.
• maxResults: storms and permits together; the prefilled 100 makes a first run cost cents.

Coverage, said plainly

• Storm reports cover the whole country, so every city gets its reports. Whether a city gets storms is another matter: Seattle, Everett and Marin County rarely see severe hail; Chicago, Cincinnati, Austin, Mesa, New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Orlando do, most summers.
• Cincinnati's permit register carries no roofing permits (it publishes electrical, plumbing and mechanical trades only), so Cincinnati delivers storm reports and says so about the permits. Ohio does not license roofers either.
• The permit is classified as roofing from its type, work class and description, the same rule as the US Building Permits Actor. A city that files re-roofs under a generic "residential alteration" with no description shows fewer roofing permits than it really issues.
• The lift is a comparison of two short windows, not a forecast. A -6% after a small storm is normal; the number is there so you can tell a storm that filled the permit office from one that did not.
• Reports are where someone saw the hail, from spotters, the public and NWS offices. A swath that crossed farmland gets fewer reports than one that crossed a suburb.

Pricing

Two events. A storm report is a storm row, cheap; a roofing permit joined to its storm is a record row. Filtered-out rows cost nothing, and a city with no storm in the window delivers nothing and costs nothing.

Data sources

• NOAA Storm Prediction Center, daily storm reports (spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports), public domain.
• The 12 cities' official permit registers on Socrata open-data portals, the same sources as the US Building Permits Actor.