Hail in Colorado really is worse than in other parts of the country (Denver: homeowners insurance, condo)

[Vision67]

https://www.9news.com/article/weathe...y/73-579168850

"Colorado is part of what’s known as “Hail Alley.” In fact, nowhere in the United States gets more severe hail storms than part of the Front Range.

The other thing about Colorado? Hail falls a little faster and hits a little harder here too.

The thin Colorado air has been tormenting pitchers at Coors Field for years. It’s not just baseballs that sail through the air with ease … the same can be said for hail stones."

There are just two aspect of Colorado weather that I don't like - Hail and Wind.

I've learned to always keep my cars in the garage and I always watch the weather radar from my smartphone in summer afternoons.

Colorado is nice but it's not a perfect place to live.

[COcheesehead]

I have never seen hail like I‘ve seen on the front range. When the city has to bring out snowplows.... When it’s the size of limes.... When you think every window in your house is going to break.... When it takes chunks of wood out of your cedar trim.... When it makes your car look like someone danced on it with football cleats....
Both our cars and our house in the 25 years we’ve lived here have had major hail damage. It’s not an if, it’s a when. They don’t call it the hail belt for nothing.

[pikabike]

Originally Posted by Vision67

https://www.9news.com/article/weathe...y/73-579168850

"Colorado is part of what’s known as “Hail Alley.” In fact, nowhere in the United States gets more severe hail storms than part of the Front Range.

The other thing about Colorado? Hail falls a little faster and hits a little harder here too.

The thin Colorado air has been tormenting pitchers at Coors Field for years. It’s not just baseballs that sail through the air with ease … the same can be said for hail stones."

There are just two aspect of Colorado weather that I don't like - Hail and Wind.

I've learned to always keep my cars in the garage and I always watch the weather radar from my smartphone in summer afternoons.

Colorado is nice but it's not a perfect place to live.

This is not news. The hail has been around for a long time. What has changed is the extent of areas that get it: 30 years ago it was virtually nonexistent in the foothills. I watched the “hail zone” creep westward over time. When I moved to the Denver area, it stopped somewhere near Sheridan (in Lakewood). Then it made it to Wadsworth, then Kipling, then Union Blvd, then Indiana Street.

In 2000, we even got it at our old home in the zone between Ken Caryl Ranch and Conifer. It was “only” pea size hail, but it hurtled—and I do mean slammed down in violent downgusts, over and over as the stones recirculated by updrafts and then hurled downward again. The storm would turn to rain and then moments later the cell(s) would unleash yet another blast of hail. I could not believe how many times I thought it was done, only to hear the ominous rise in shotlike noise as the rain turned once more into stones.

Within minutes, our steep dirt road turned into a raging flash flood. Tree stumps, boulders...what road?

The hail left dents in wooden surfaces and on my 1-month-old bought-new Jeep. The county rolled in its 6WD road grading machinery to clear the flash flood debris and remake the road. Next spring, we got a new metsl roof.

Two years after that, the quasi-blizzard dumped snow for 5 days, sometimes at the rate of 4” per hour. I know because I shoveled every 3 hrs just to keep a path to the garage building clear; even though driving was impossible, that would have been my escape route from the house that was on top of a hill with an even steeper driveway. The power was out for most of that period.

The foothills are gorgeous and definitely not for everyone, and that is putting it mildly.. You can also say that about CO overall. I would not want to live where hail gets to golfball or baseball size, no matter how nice the area is otherwise.

BUT there are other Hail Horrors outside of CO, too. Consider KS, just for starters.

[Tx2Co19]

It's crazy, I was just reading about this in researching the move to Denver. I though North Texas was bad, but, it looks like the area around Denver not only leads the nation in hail storms but also tornadoes (Adams & Weld?)

[Thoreau424]

Although hail has been bad in past years, this year has been the worst I've seen.

The pattern over the past 6 years - from where I am - has been: summers moving towards more moisture and hail, winters declining in snowfall.

[Tx2Co19]

Originally Posted by Thoreau424

Although hail has been bad in past years, this year has been the worst I've seen.

The pattern over the past 6 years - from where I am - has been: summers moving towards more moisture and hail, winters declining in snowfall.

It feels like it's been the opposite here in Texas. It has gotten progressively drier over the years

[townshend]

Originally Posted by Tx2Co19

It's crazy, I was just reading about this in researching the move to Denver. I though North Texas was bad, but, it looks like the area around Denver not only leads the nation in hail storms but also tornadoes (Adams & Weld?)

Initially, I had exactly the same thought (see bolded).

The hail pattern picture, which is reproduced on the Channel 9 news site, looks to be low resolution, but it appears to distinguish five different hail zones, ranging from

1 -- yellow
2 -- yellow-green
3 -- green
4 -- darker green
5 -- darkest green -- (superimposed on highest numbers)

I don't want to experience level 5 hail, having lived in North Texas -- note the southward protrusion of an arm of level 4/darker green precisely into North Texas.

In North Texas, most houses have composition roofs that have an oversized "invisible" cross hair printed on them. Having lived in N. Texas for 25 years (starting in 1992), it appears that hail storms progressively got worse, perhaps as the zone moved southward with changing weather patterns.

On three different occasions, I had to have the entire roof replaced. I was spared on numerous other occasions (hailstorms striking other neighborhoods, etc.). Home owner's insurance "kind of" paid for the roofs -- on the last occasion, I had a 2% deductible (trying to offset the rising insurance rates) so I had to pay about $2,000.00 out of my pocket.

My understanding is that the roofing industry does produce a hail-retardant composition shingle, but the insurance companies are short-sighted and do nothing to encourage the home owner to replace the hail-damaged roof with a hail-retardant one. Of course, it's a matter of money, pure and simple.

[TCHP]

Doing my last roof replacement with hail resistant shingles allowed me to avoid an increase in rates, so some insurance companies are clued in to it. They would not grant me the same discount on investment properties, but I did them there too.

Having spent half a century on the Front Range, I can state with certainty that hail has always been a part of life here. It does tend to vary quite widely in size and frequency over the years and its trends tend to be measured more in decades than years. I can recall times as a young boy putting on my YAL football gear to run out into the storm and collect samples. Frequent pea sized storms were not unusual. The occasional golf ball sized ones were not as common, but also occurred on occasion as well. We would occasionally hear of stones even bigger in some rural areas and using snow plows to clear hail from the streets used to happen as well. Looking at the map in the link above and it showing some major hail dates going well back into the 1970s and 80s, the data would seem to support that observation.

BTW, the thin air impacts golfers too, both positive, if your drive is on target, and negatively, if you have a mean slice.

[DOUBLE H]

The storm that hit northeastern Colorado, particularly the Brush/Ft. Morgan area, does not surprise me in the least. I was one of the earlier craftsman to work out on the Pawnee Power Plant between those two communities. I stayed in my mobile home in Brush during the week and kept a condo in the Littleton area coming home on weekends. About midweek I opened up the clothes closet and noticed the wet work clothes. Imagine my surprise when I looked up and saw a hole in the roof about the size of a softball. A roofing company based out of Brighton spent the whole week in that park fixing holes, I had a total of four of them. This was August of 1979.


Then---early April of 1990 I just bought a used 1989 Pontiac Lemans LE, I was going to meet friends at Cinderella City Shopping center after work when a hail storm that went gaga. I was two cars behind this Ford LTD and was in the turn lane to get in the lower parking garage. The Ford LTD stalled, here comes the hail, and I sat inside the car knowing that it was getting beat to a pulp. 45 minutes later a tow truck got the car out of the way. I bought that car two months before the storm and thought about paying cash for it but decided to pay half and finance it for a year. Good thing I did as I made two payments and the insurance company (State Farm) paid the rest. Still, I would have liked to get around that Ford. Ugh!


Google in Denver hailstorm--July 11, 1990.

[Mike from back east]

Bought a house in COLO SPGS in 2005.

Replaced original roof in 2007 due to severe August hail storm. THOUSANDS of homes in the Pine Creek and Briargate area had their homes re-roofed due to that storm. Lots of cars and decks got replaced too.

Replaced the roof again in 2011 due to another hail storm. This time we used heavy duty shingles made by Malarky that had a 50-year guarantee and said to be hail resistant. Insurance paid all but $1200.00 for this new roof.

In the span of those six years our house saw 3 roofs.

Homeowners insurance in COLO SPGS was $3700/year due to hail and fire hazards. Moved to Peoria, AZ in June 2016 and homeowners insurance on similar priced home was only $370.00/year. Yes, just 10% of prior policy.

If you've a nice car then I urge having a garage or carport. IMO a concrete patio is far more preferable than a "deck" since it won't burn, rot, need painting or get termites.