Q1 2026 Hail Market Analysis: 690 Events Across 14.7M Addresses

Quarter in Numbers

Q1 2026 produced 690 qualifying hail events across January, February, and March. Those events covered 14,672,372 warning-area addresses. Peak confirmed hail reached 4.5 inches. Average confirmed hail came in at 1.28 inches.

The quarter was broad in reach. It was not a low-volume stretch concentrated in a few isolated storms. The event count stayed high, and the address load was spread across multiple metro centers and surrounding corridors. Contractors planning crew moves had to track both frequency and footprint.

The largest exposure did not come from a single metro. It came from repeated activity across several high-address warning areas in Texas, Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana, and Mississippi. The list below shows where the largest warning-area address counts landed.

Top Markets by Activity

Fort Worth, Texas led the quarter with 758,838 warning-area addresses across 1 hail event. Hendersonville, Tennessee followed with 735,630 addresses across 1 event. Chicago, Illinois posted 613,028 addresses across 1 event, with a peak confirmed hail size of 2.5 inches.

Castalian Springs, Tennessee recorded 480,448 addresses across 1 event. Denton, Texas posted 424,592 addresses across 1 event. Dallas, Texas logged 421,994 addresses across 1 event with a peak of 1.5 inches.

Indianapolis, Indiana reached 334,707 addresses across 1 event. Lockport, Illinois totaled 291,152 addresses across 1 event with a peak of 1.5 inches. Southaven, Mississippi recorded 277,140 addresses across 1 event. Grand Prairie, Texas closed the top ten with 257,674 addresses across 1 event.

The top ten metros alone accounted for 4,595,203 warning-area addresses. That is 31.3 percent of the quarter’s total address exposure.

The concentration was notable in Texas. Fort Worth, Denton, Dallas, and Grand Prairie combined for 1,863,098 addresses across four events. Each of those events sat in a different part of the metro web, but the trade takeaway stayed the same. Texas remained one of the most address-dense lanes in the quarter.

Tennessee also carried heavy exposure. Hendersonville and Castalian Springs combined for 1,216,078 addresses across two events. Both markets sat in the Nashville orbit, and both delivered large address counts from single-event warning areas.

Illinois added two major exposures. Chicago and Lockport combined for 904,180 addresses across two events. Chicago brought the larger footprint and the stronger hail size. Lockport added another sizable address block with a separate event.

Indianapolis and Southaven filled out the central and lower Mississippi Valley side of the board. Indianapolis gave crews a large urban and suburban footprint. Southaven added another concentrated metro exposure near the Memphis market.

Regional Distribution

The quarter’s address load formed four practical clusters based on the metro data.

The first cluster was the Texas corridor. Fort Worth, Denton, Dallas, and Grand Prairie carried 1,863,098 warning-area addresses across four events. The names span the northern and western side of the Dallas–Fort Worth market. The address counts were large enough to support repeated mobilization in one state without leaving the region.

The second cluster was the Tennessee cluster around Nashville. Hendersonville and Castalian Springs produced 1,216,078 warning-area addresses across two events. Both markets sat close enough to each other to suggest overlapping crew coverage during the quarter, even though each event stood on its own.

The third cluster was the Illinois corridor. Chicago and Lockport produced 904,180 warning-area addresses across two events. Chicago was the larger of the two by a clear margin, but Lockport still added a separate suburban exposure with a meaningful address count.

The fourth cluster ran through Indianapolis and Southaven. Indianapolis contributed 334,707 addresses. Southaven added 277,140. These two markets were not adjacent in the same way as the Texas or Tennessee pairings, but they both placed sizable single-event pressure points on the quarter’s map.

The remaining event volume outside the top ten still mattered. With 690 qualifying events in the quarter, the market did not depend on only a few headline storms. Smaller and mid-sized events continued to fill in the calendar and keep crews moving. That is usually the more difficult part of a quarter for operations planning. The big hits grab attention. The midrange events fill the schedule.

The hail size spread also mattered. Peak confirmed hail reached 4.5 inches in the quarter. Average confirmed hail was 1.28 inches. That mix points to a quarter with a small number of extreme events and a larger base of moderate hail producers.

Chicago’s 2.5-inch peak stands out inside the top ten. Dallas, with a 1.5-inch peak, and Lockport, with a 1.5-inch peak, show that large address exposure did not always require the largest hail size. Fort Worth, Hendersonville, Castalian Springs, Denton, Indianapolis, Southaven, and Grand Prairie each posted 1.0-inch peaks, yet all still delivered sizable warning-area address loads.

What This Means for Deployment

For contractors, Q1 2026 rewarded crews that could move fast across a wide footprint, not just chase one large storm. The quarter produced 690 events. That volume leaves limited room for long idle gaps if crews are staged correctly.

Texas should stay near the top of the deployment board. Fort Worth, Denton, Dallas, and Grand Prairie together accounted for nearly 1.9 million warning-area addresses. The events were single entries in the top-ten list, but the metro spread suggests repeated demand inside one state and one contractor service zone.

Nashville-area coverage also deserves close attention. Hendersonville and Castalian Springs combined for more than 1.2 million warning-area addresses. Contractors already working the Nashville orbit should treat nearby suburban and exurban counties as part of the same storm response lane.

Chicago and its suburbs remain a separate priority. Chicago alone delivered 613,028 addresses in one event. Lockport added 291,152. That combination reflects a large urban market with enough suburban spillover to justify flexible crew placement.

Indianapolis and Southaven sit in a different deployment bucket. Both are large enough to justify local coverage, but both are also useful as bridge markets when crews are moving between heavier Texas and Illinois demand and the broader central South.

The quarter also showed that address exposure and hail size do not always move together. A 1.0-inch peak in Fort Worth still came with 758,838 addresses. A 1.0-inch peak in Hendersonville still came with 735,630. A 1.5-inch peak in Dallas still came with 421,994. That mix is familiar to contractors who have worked enough seasons to know that footprint often decides the schedule before hail size does.

The practical read for Q2 planning is straightforward. Keep Texas, Nashville, Chicago, Indianapolis, and the Memphis-adjacent Southaven lane on the board early. Watch for repeated address-heavy warnings in the same corridors. Build enough crew depth to handle multiple single-event metros in a short span. Q1 2026 did not behave like a narrow outbreak month. It behaved like a quarter with sustained market pressure across several high-address zones.

For roofing and exterior teams, that kind of quarter favors disciplined dispatch, regional flexibility, and enough inventory to handle more than one major metro at a time.