Reading SPC hail data before your competitors do
The NOAA Storm Prediction Center publishes raw hail reports every day. Here's how to turn that feed into a canvassing route.
By Hail Nexus
Every hail day, the NOAA Storm Prediction Center (SPC) collects reports from spotters, law enforcement, and the public, then publishes them as a running log. That log is public, free, and updated all day long — and most PDR shops never look at it until the work has already been claimed.
What a report actually tells you
Each SPC hail report carries four things that matter to a repair business:
- Size — reported in inches. Anything at or above 1“ is worth watching; 1.75“+ (golf ball) reliably dents sheet metal; 2“+ (hen egg and up) means heavy, widespread damage.
- Location — a town and county, plus latitude/longitude. County is what you route on.
- Time — when the stone fell, in local convective time.
- Comments — spotter notes, sometimes with vehicle or roof damage called out directly.
Turn the feed into a route
The naive approach is refreshing the SPC page. The useful approach is watching the feed by county and size, ranked, so the biggest stones near you float to the top. That’s exactly what the Hail Nexus map does: it pulls the same SPC source, plots every report, and lets you filter to the size threshold that’s worth a drive.
Timing beats everything
Insurance-driven PDR work is a race. The shop that knocks first books the driveway. If you’re reading yesterday’s news, you’re canvassing a neighborhood three other crews already worked. Live data is the whole game.
This is a working draft — refine the numbers and add local examples before publishing.