Recorded events
Hail and wind recorded near Laguna Niguel
Radar has picked up hail-bearing storm cells within ten miles of Laguna Niguel on one day: 5 October 2021. Here is what was recorded, and what is worth checking as a result.
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The hail record
The most recent detection was on 5 October 2021, about 5 years ago. Radar sized the largest stone in that cell at about 1.0 inches, at or above the one-inch line the trade treats as the threshold for claimable impact damage on asphalt. The nearest cell was about 6.1 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 | 1.0 in | 6.1 mi | 4 |
Gusts, and when they happen
Over 5 years of daily records at this location, the highest modelled gust was about 56 mph, below the 58 mph severe threshold but well into the range that finds anything already lifted or loose. There were 18 days above 39 mph and 3 above 45 mph in that period, concentrated in January, February, and March.
| Date | Peak gust |
|---|---|
| 16 February 2026 | 44 mph |
| 8 January 2025 | 46 mph |
| 14 March 2024 | 56 mph |
| 21 March 2023 | 43 mph |
| 25 February 2023 | 50 mph |
| 23 January 2023 | 43 mph |
| 2 February 2022 | 43 mph |
| 14 December 2021 | 44 mph |
The checks worth making
What landed on it
Wind-blown debris causes a surprising share of storm damage, and it is the one kind of damage that is genuinely obvious once somebody looks.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Laguna Niguel. 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.
Storm damage questions
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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