After any significant storm — high winds, hail, or heavy sustained rain — it's worth doing a careful check of your roof before problems have a chance to turn into water damage inside your home. You don't need to get on the roof yourself to do a useful first pass; most damage is visible from the ground with a pair of binoculars, and getting on a roof without proper safety equipment carries real risk of its own.
Start by walking the perimeter of your house and looking up at the roofline from several angles. Look for shingles that are visibly missing, cracked, curling at the edges, or a noticeably different color from the surrounding area — discoloration can indicate granule loss, which is a sign of hail impact or wind abrasion even when the shingle itself hasn't come loose.
Check your gutters and the ground around your downspouts for accumulated granules, which look like coarse, colored sand. Asphalt shingles shed some granules naturally over time, but a sudden, heavy accumulation after a specific storm is a strong sign of hail damage that's worth having inspected even if the roof looks fine from a distance.
Look at flashing — the metal strips around chimneys, vents, skylights, and where different roof sections meet — for anything bent, lifted, or separated from the surface it's sealing. Flashing failures are one of the most common sources of leaks after a storm, and damage here can be much harder to spot from the ground than damaged shingles.
Inside the house, check ceilings and the attic (if accessible) for water stains, damp insulation, or a musty smell, even if you didn't see obvious exterior damage — some leaks take days to show up as a visible stain, and catching one early can be the difference between a small repair and a larger drywall and insulation job.
If you spot any of these signs, or if your area experienced significant hail or sustained winds over roughly 50 mph, it's worth having a licensed roofer do a proper inspection even without obvious visible damage — some storm damage genuinely isn't visible from the ground. Many roofers offer free storm damage inspections specifically because insurance claims for storm damage typically need to be filed within a specific window after the event, so it's worth acting promptly rather than waiting until a minor leak becomes a bigger problem.