The 24 September 2023 Austin Hail Storm

24 September 2023. The largest hail event in the recent Central Texas record. If your roof was on the house that evening, this is the date that matters most in its history — and three years on, the damage from it is only now surfacing as leaks.

What Actually Fell, Hour by Hour

Every entry below is a National Weather Service report, logged as it happened. The storm crossed Williamson County first, then dropped into Travis.

Georgetown, from 19:35. Two-and-a-half-inch hail at 19:35. 1.75-inch at 19:44 and 19:45. 2.25-inch at 19:50.

Round Rock, from 19:54 — the worst of it. 2.75-inch at 19:54. Then 3.5-inch at 19:55 and again at 19:57. Three-inch at Old Round Rock at 20:00. Three-inch again at 20:15. 2.25-inch at 20:20. Then at 20:21, four-inch hail — softball size — carrying a $300 million property damage figure. 3.75-inch six minutes later.

Pflugerville and north Travis, from 20:20. Three-inch at 20:20. Two-inch at Austin Executive Airport at 20:23 and again at 20:31.

Fiskville and central Austin, from 20:40. 1.75-inch at 20:40. Two-and-a-quarter-inch at Austin Mabry at 20:50. Three-inch at Fiskville at 20:55. Then a sustained run into central Austin: two-inch at 21:07, 2.25-inch at 21:05 and 21:10, 2.5-inch at 21:10, 2.5-inch twice at 21:17, 2.5-inch at 21:29, and two-inch as late as 21:44.

Roughly two hours, and the largest stones fell in the dark.

Why This One Is Still Producing Work Three Years Later

Hail of that size does two things. The obvious damage — punctured shingles, destroyed vents, split decking — got dealt with in the months afterward by homeowners who filed.

The second kind is slower. A three-inch stone that does not puncture a shingle still fractures the mat beneath the surface and strips the granules that protect the asphalt. That roof keeps shedding water, looks entirely normal from the driveway, and quietly loses years of service life. It fails somewhere between eighteen months and four years later, usually in a hard rain with wind behind it.

That is where we are now. The roofs failing across Round Rock and north Austin this year are, in a great many cases, roofs that were struck in September 2023 and never inspected, because nothing appeared to be wrong at the time.

What to Check if Your Roof Was Up That Night

• The soft metals first. Gutters, downspouts, vent caps, valley metal, window screens, the air conditioner fins. Hail marks these unmistakably, and unlike shingles they do not weather the evidence away. If these are dimpled, the roof took the same hits.
• The decking, from inside. Go into the attic in daylight with the lights off and look up. A stone heavy enough to fracture decking leaves damage that a shingle-only inspection passes straight over.
• Granule accumulation. Some in the gutters is normal. A heavy layer, particularly at downspout outlets, is not.
• Bruising by hand, not by eye. A hail bruise is a soft, slightly springy circle where the mat fractured underneath. It is often invisible and always findable by touch.
• Ceiling and wall staining in rooms below valleys or around chimneys — the places water reaches first.

On Timing, Honestly

Most policies require prompt notice of a loss, and three years is a long way from prompt. Whether a claim from September 2023 is still viable depends entirely on your policy and your insurer, and that is a conversation for them rather than for us.

What we can tell you is the condition of your roof and what it will take to put right, documented and in writing, whether or not any of it goes to a claim. That is worth having either way — a dated record of your roof’s condition is useful the next time a storm crosses, and Central Texas will not wait long to provide one.

Where This Storm Hit Hardest

Town-by-town detail, including each place’s full storm record: Round Rock · Georgetown · Pflugerville · Austin. The wider picture is on our hail damage roof repair guide.

Every date, time and hail size on this page comes from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information Storm Events Database, which records reports filed with the National Weather Service. The $300 million figure is the property damage recorded against the 20:21 Round Rock entry.

Have It Looked At

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