# Storm and Hail Data

CurbSight cross-references every property in your territory against the NOAA Storm Events Database — the official federal record of every hail, wind, and tornado event in the United States. This is the single biggest reason CurbSight outperforms generic lead-gen tools for storm-driven verticals (roofing, gutters, siding, painting).

## What Is the NOAA Storm Events Database?

The Storm Events Database is published by the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), a division of NOAA. It contains every storm event reported to the National Weather Service since 1950, including:

- **Hail events** — date, time, location (lat/long), maximum hail size in inches
- **Wind events** — date, time, location, max sustained wind in mph
- **Tornado events** — date, time, path, EF rating, width and length

The database is public, free, and updated continuously. Most contractors have never heard of it. CurbSight ingests it and joins it to every property.

## How CurbSight Uses Storm Data

For every property in your territory, CurbSight computes:

1. **Most recent significant hail event** — date and size
2. **All hail events in the last 24 months** — counted and severity-weighted
3. **All hail events in the last 60 months** — for older damage that may still trigger insurance claims
4. **Wind exposure** — max sustained wind in the last 24 months
5. **Tornado history** — any tornado within a defined radius

These are surfaced on the property card and contribute to the composite score. For roofing-focused scoring, hail exposure is one of the most heavily weighted signals.

## Why This Matters

Without storm data, lead generation in storm-driven verticals is guesswork. Sales Rabbit, HomeAdvisor, AccuLynx, JobNimbus — none of them tie property records to NOAA data. They tell you which homes exist, not which homes were under 2.5" hail eight weeks ago.

CurbSight is built around the insight that hail history is the single most actionable signal in roofing prospecting, and federal data is the most reliable source for that signal.

## The 72-Hour Hail Playbook

After a major hail event, the highest-conversion contractors are on the affected blocks within 72 hours. CurbSight is built for this:

1. **NOAA publishes the event** — typically within 24–48 hours.
2. **CurbSight ingests it** — re-scoring every property in the affected radius.
3. **Your dashboard updates** — properties under the storm footprint surface to the top.
4. **Your reps knock** — with verifiable, hyperlocal context on the storm.

This is the playbook that separates contractors who win storm season from contractors who watch out-of-state storm chasers eat their territory.

## Storm Map Overlay

On Pro and Enterprise plans, the interactive map renders hail swath polygons over your territory. You can visually identify which streets and blocks were under the most severe parts of each storm — invaluable for canvassing planning and for explaining damage to homeowners.

## Data Coverage

NOAA data covers all 50 US states with consistent quality from roughly 1996 onward. Storm reporting density is highest in the Central Plains, Southeast, and Midwest — exactly where hail-driven home services are most active.

## Limitations We're Honest About

- NOAA records report storms based on observation networks; very localized hail can occasionally go under-reported.
- Hail size is reported as max observed, not as a continuous footprint — CurbSight uses radius-based estimation to apply event severity to nearby properties.
- Time resolution is by date; not all events have precise timestamps.

We are continuously improving the storm data layer. SWDI API integration and supplementary data sources (radar-derived hail estimates, MESH data) are on the roadmap.

## See Also

- [Property Intelligence Dashboard](./dashboard.md)
- [Interactive Map](./map.md)
- [How Property Scoring Works](../scoring.md)
- [Lead Generation for Roofing Companies](../use-cases/roofing.md)