The September 11, 2026 Schertz Hail Storm: What the Records Show, and What We Found on a Schertz Roof
What the National Weather Service Actually Logged
These are the preliminary Local Storm Reports issued by the NWS Austin/San Antonio office for Bexar County that night. The full county list is six entries long. Every one of them is below - nothing has been left out to make a point.
| Location | Report | Size / speed | Measured or estimated | Time (CDT) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 miles SE of Converse | Hail | 2.50 in | Estimated | 9:59 pm |
| 2 miles S of Schertz (Randolph AFB) | Wind gust | 60 mph | Measured | 10:04 pm |
| 4 miles SSE of Converse (Paloma subdivision) | Hail | 1.75 in | Measured | 10:10 pm |
| 2 miles NE of St. Hedwig | Hail | 1.00 in | Estimated | 10:17 pm |
| 3 miles ENE of Kirby | Hail | 1.00 - 1.50 in | Estimated | 10:18 pm |
| 1 mile WSW of China Grove | Hail | 1.00 in | Estimated | 10:20 pm |
Source: National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio (WFO EWX) preliminary Local Storm Reports, product NWUS54 KEWX, together with Severe Thunderstorm Warning KEWX.SV.W.0170.
Schertz does appear in the warning itself. The 10:10 pm Severe Thunderstorm Warning named San Antonio, Schertz, Cibolo, Converse, Universal City, Live Oak, Randolph AFB, Kirby, St. Hedwig and China Grove in its list of locations impacted, and warned of "hail damage to roofs, siding, windows, and vehicles".
Why There Is No NWS Hail Report for Schertz
This trips people up, and adjusters sometimes lean on it, so it is worth understanding.
Local Storm Reports are reports of opportunity. They are not a survey and they were never intended to be a damage map. The NWS logs what reaches it: a trained spotter who calls in, a public photograph it can verify, an automated station that records a gust. Six reports exist for the whole of Bexar County on a night when a severe storm crossed the most densely populated part of it. That number tells you about reporting, not about hail.
The Randolph AFB entry illustrates the point neatly. It is the only measured report in the county that night, and it exists because an automated weather station sits on the airfield and recorded a gust. There is no comparable instrument in a residential Schertz subdivision. Nobody measures hail in a back garden unless they happen to go outside with a ruler.
So the honest reading of the record is this: the storm was severe, it was over the Schertz and Randolph area at around 10:02 to 10:04 pm, it produced a measured 60 mph gust there, and it produced verified hail of 1.75 to 2.50 inches a few miles southwest. What it did on any individual Schertz roof is not in the federal record either way.
What a Forensic Hail Report Showed for One Schertz Address
Insurance carriers and contractors both use commercial hail-verification services, which model hail at a specific address from radar data and ground reports. We obtained one for a property in south Schertz, ZIP 78154. The address is withheld for the homeowner’s privacy.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Report | StormIntel Verify hail history report, WeatherGuidance Forensics Unit |
| Search period | 19 September 2025 to 19 September 2026 (a full year) |
| Event returned | 11 September 2026, 10:02 pm |
| Estimated hail size at the property | 2.75 in |
| Maximum within 1, 2, 3 and 5 miles | 3.00 in at every radius |
| Any other qualifying hail event in the 12-month window | None |
Three things about that report are worth drawing out.
The timing corroborates the federal record rather than floating free of it. 10:02 pm sits between the 9:59 pm Converse hail report and the 10:04 pm Randolph AFB gust. Three independent sources put the same storm over the same ground within five minutes.
It is the only qualifying event in a full year. The service searched twelve months and returned one date. Where a roof in that area has hail damage, there is only one storm in the past year it can reasonably be attributed to. That single-event picture is unusually clean, and it is the most useful line in the document.
It is an estimate, and we are labelling it as one. The report states its own method: examination of ground-based storm reports and radar-indicated hail detection algorithms. That is a model, not a measured stone. It is the same class of evidence carriers use, which is precisely why it is worth having - but it is not the same thing as somebody catching a hailstone and putting a tape measure across it.
What We Documented on a Schertz Roof
Weather data describes the sky. It does not tell you what happened to your roof. So we went and looked at one.
Everything below was photographed during a Driftwood Builders Roofing inspection in Schertz. To be exact about what these images do and do not establish: they show the condition of a roof. They do not, by themselves, date the damage. Storm timing comes from the weather record above; the photographs show what is on the shingles.
What one hail impact looks like
What several impacts in a small area look like
What countable damage across a whole slope looks like
Marks get made in more than one colour on a roof, for ordinary reasons - a different slope, a different day, a different person holding the chalk. The colour carries no meaning of its own:
Collateral damage to roof components
Collateral components carry disproportionate weight in an assessment, because they are difficult to explain away as age. A twenty-year-old shingle and a twenty-year-old shingle with hail damage can look similar to an untrained eye. A chipped vent rim looks like exactly one thing.
Isolated Marks Versus Widespread Damage
This is the distinction that decides most Texas hail files, and it is the one most likely to be misrepresented to you in a driveway.
Not every mark on a roof is hail. Foot traffic from a previous trade leaves scuffs. Manufacturing flecks, blister pops, granule shedding from normal ageing and mechanical damage from a dropped tool all leave marks that a person motivated to find hail can find hail in. A genuine hail impact has a recognisable signature - a roughly circular area of displaced granules with a bruised, slightly soft mat underneath, and it tends to appear with consistent directionality across a slope rather than at random.
The step that matters is counting a defined area, then repeating it on every elevation. One impact tells you a stone landed. A consistent count across multiple slopes, together with matching damage to the soft metals and the penetrations, tells you the roof took a storm.
Does This Mean a Repair or a Replacement?
Neither this page nor any single photograph on it can answer that, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise.
The decision turns on the whole roof rather than on the worst image of it. What actually goes into it:
- How widespread the damage is, measured consistently by area and repeated on every elevation, not judged from the worst square metre.
- The age and remaining service life of the covering. The same impact count means something different on a roof with twenty years left than on one with three.
- The material. Three-tab, architectural asphalt, impact-resistant Class 4 and metal all respond to hail differently and are all repaired differently.
- Whether the existing shingle can still be matched. A discontinued line or a weathered colour that no longer matches can turn a technically repairable slope into a replacement.
- The condition of what is underneath. Decking, underlayment and fastener integrity all bear on whether a patch is sound or merely cosmetic.
- Collateral damage. Flashing, penetrations, vents, gutters and siding often determine the scope more than the field shingle does.
- How many slopes are affected. One elevation is a different proposition from four.
A thorough inspection gathers all of that and puts it in front of you. What it will not do is pretend the answer was obvious from a photograph.
What to Do Now, in Order
- Check what you can see from the ground first. Gutters, downspouts, window screens, the metal of any vent visible from the yard, and your garden furniture and vehicles. Soft metals dent where shingle hides the same blow. You do not need a ladder for any of this, and you should not get on the roof.
- Photograph what you find, with dates. Your own photographs cost nothing and are worth having.
- Get the roof inspected and documented by someone who will show you the evidence slope by slope. Ours is free and the report is yours to keep. See the Schertz hail damage inspection page for what that involves.
- Then decide about a claim, with the report in hand and your deductible in mind. That order matters. A claim filed before anyone has established whether there is damage worth claiming can work against you.
Elsewhere in the Storm’s Path
Converse took the most thoroughly documented damage from this storm, including the only measured hail report of the night. If you are in or near Converse, the Converse hail and insurance claim guide covers the event and the claims process in considerably more depth.
The verified hail corridor ran southwest from Converse toward Kirby and China Grove, and east toward St. Hedwig. Universal City was inside the warned area but has no confirmed hail report from that night.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did it hail in Schertz, Texas on September 11, 2026?
The National Weather Service did not log a hail report for Schertz that night. Its only Schertz-area entry is a measured 60 mph wind gust at Randolph Air Force Base. However, a third-party forensic hail report for one address in south Schertz (78154) returned an estimated 2.75 inches of hail at 10:02 pm on September 11, and we documented hail damage on a Schertz roof during a later inspection. The absence of an NWS report is not evidence that no hail fell.
How big was the hail near Schertz?
It depends entirely on which source you use and where you stand. The nearest NWS ground reports are in Converse, about five to eight miles southwest: 2.50 inches roughly three miles southeast of Converse, and a measured 1.75 inches in the Paloma subdivision. For one south Schertz address, a StormIntel forensic report estimated 2.75 inches at the property and up to 3.00 inches within a mile. That last figure is a vendor estimate derived from radar and ground reports, not a measured stone.
Why is there no National Weather Service hail report for Schertz?
Because Local Storm Reports are reports of opportunity, not a survey. The NWS logs what someone tells it - a trained spotter, a public social media post, an automated station. If nobody in a given neighbourhood reported hail, or nobody the NWS could verify, no report exists for that neighbourhood. Six reports exist for the whole of Bexar County that night. That is a measure of who reported, not of where hail fell.
My adjuster says there was no hail reported in Schertz. What do I do?
Ask which dataset they are working from. The NWS storm-report record and commercial forensic hail datasets are built differently and routinely disagree at neighbourhood scale. The useful response is not an argument about maps but evidence from the roof itself: dated, located photographs of individual impacts, soft-metal damage and collateral components. That is what an inspection is for.
Do the photographs on this page prove when the hail fell?
No, and we will not claim otherwise. The photographs show hail damage observed on a Schertz roof during an inspection. They do not, on their own, establish the date the damage occurred. Storm timing comes from the weather record; the photographs show condition. We keep those two things separate deliberately.
Does hail damage always mean a full roof replacement?
No. Whether a roof is repaired or replaced depends on how widespread the damage is, not just whether damage exists - plus the age and material of the roof, whether matching shingles can still be sourced, the condition of the decking and underlayment, damage to flashing and penetrations, and how many slopes are affected. A single photograph of a single impact does not settle any of that.
