Recorded events
The wind record for Los Alamitos
Los Alamitos does not get hail in any quantity — five years of radar detections found none within ten miles. It does get wind, on a handful of days a year, and those are the days roofs are lost here.
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What the radar recorded
Across 61 months of NEXRAD records, no hail-bearing storm cell has been detected within ten miles of Los Alamitos. That is normal for this part of California and it is the reason roof claims here are almost always wind, water or age rather than impact.
Wind
Over 5 years of daily records at this location, the highest modelled gust was about 55 mph, below the 58 mph severe threshold but well into the range that finds anything already lifted or loose. There were 26 days above 39 mph and 7 above 45 mph in that period, concentrated in January, February, and March.
| Date | Peak gust |
|---|---|
| 18 February 2026 | 51 mph |
| 3 April 2023 | 45 mph |
| 1 March 2023 | 44 mph |
| 25 February 2023 | 55 mph |
| 21 February 2023 | 44 mph |
| 12 April 2022 | 44 mph |
| 14 December 2021 | 49 mph |
| 11 October 2021 | 49 mph |
What to look at after a storm
Granules where they should not be
Look in the splash blocks and at the base of the downspouts. Granule loss concentrated in one area, rather than spread evenly, is the pattern that points at impact rather than at age.
What the street is doing
If several roofs on the street are being worked on and yours is the same age and the same covering, that is a reason to have yours looked at. It is not a reason to assume you have damage, and a contractor who tells you the whole street is getting a new roof paid for by insurance is telling you something about themselves.
The soft metal, first
Start with the parts that bruise easily: gutter faces, downspouts, vent hoods, the aluminium trim. They are the network of soft targets around the roof, and they record a hail event more legibly than the shingles do. Clean metal is meaningful evidence.
Inside, before outside
Go into the attic on a bright day with the lights off. Daylight through the deck, fresh staining on the sheathing, or a rust track down a nail shank all say water got in. The attic shows it long before a ceiling does, and dated photographs of it are worth a great deal later.
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.
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 Los Alamitos. 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
There was a storm near me. Do I have damage?
A recorded storm nearby is a reason to have the roof looked at, not evidence that anything happened to it. The useful first check costs nothing: dents in the soft metal around the roof, and a look in the attic on a bright day.
Find out what it costs
No cost. We email you once when a provider near you can take it on.