Lubbock County Hail Calendar: When Hail Hits and How Big It Gets

Thirty years of NOAA hail reports for Lubbock County, sorted by month, with what each size of stone can do to a garage door.

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Hail season in Lubbock County peaks in May and June: from 1996 through 2025, those two months held 65% of NOAA's 419 county hail reports.

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This page sorts 30 years of federal hail reports by month so you can see when the risk is highest and how large the stones have been. Every number below comes from NOAA's Storm Prediction Center (SPC) hail file, checked against NOAA's Storm Events Database. The method is at the bottom.

Lubbock County hail by month, 1996-2025

"Reports" are individual hail observations logged by the National Weather Service. One storm can produce several reports. "Hail days" counts calendar dates with at least one report. "Years with hail" is out of 30.

Month	Reports	Hail days	Years with any hail	Reports 1.75 in. or larger	Largest reported	Date of largest
January	1	1	1	0	1.00 in.	Jan 4, 2005
February	3	2	2	0	1.00 in.	Feb 24, 2000
March	29	14	9	8	2.75 in.	Mar 19, 2011
April	71	30	19	14	2.75 in.	Apr 29, 2012
May	163	66	25	58	4.50 in.	May 17, 2001; May 8, 2015
June	111	47	23	50	4.50 in.	Jun 17, 2013; Jun 23, 2023
July	7	7	7	1	1.75 in.	Jul 12, 2008
August	13	6	5	2	2.75 in.	Aug 6, 2004
September	16	8	7	6	2.75 in.	Sep 17, 2005
October	5	4	4	2	3.00 in.	Oct 4, 2023
November	0	0	0	0	none
December	0	0	0	0	none
All months	419	185		141	4.50 in.	four dates

What stands out:

May is the main event. It had hail in 25 of the 30 years and the most golf-ball-or-larger reports of any month.
June is close behind and ties May for the largest stones.
March and early fall still matter. Baseball-size (2.75-inch) hail shows up in March, April, August and September, and 3-inch hail fell on October 4, 2023.
Late afternoon and evening dominate. About 73% of reports came between 3 and 9 p.m. Central Standard Time (the SPC file stores times in CST). In daylight saving months that's roughly 4 to 10 p.m. on the clock.
Big hail is not rare here. At least one report of 1.75 inches or larger appears in 28 of the 30 years, and 2.75 inches or larger in 15 of them.

How big is that? Size names and what they mean for a door

The National Weather Service uses everyday objects to describe hail. Its spotter chart lists these sizes, and it marks 1 inch as the severe threshold.

Diameter	NWS name	Lubbock County reports, 1996-2025	What to check on a garage door
0.75-0.88 in.	Penny to nickel	106	Usually nothing structural; look at glass inserts and paint
1.00-1.50 in.	Quarter to walnut (severe)	172	Small dents on thin, single-layer steel; check window inserts
1.75-2.50 in.	Golf ball to tennis ball	118	Dents across panels; possible cracks at hinge lines; bent struts
2.75-3.00 in.	Baseball to teacup	18	Deep dents, cracked or split sections, broken glass
4.00-4.50 in.	Grapefruit to softball	5	Panels can be punctured or crushed; check the whole door and track

The right-hand column is general guidance, not a damage rating. How a door holds up depends on its steel thickness, whether it has an insulated core, and its design. Ask a company what impact testing, if any, a door it quotes has had.

What hail does to garage doors and openers

Panels. Steel sections dent. Wood and composite sections can split. A dent alone is often cosmetic. A dent at a hinge line, or a section that now bows, is a working problem, because the door has to bend at those joints as it rolls up.

Glass. Window inserts are usually the first thing to break, even in smaller hail.

Struts and track. Wide doors use horizontal struts to stay straight. A bent strut or a knocked track can make the door bind or ride out of its rollers.

Springs and cables. Hail doesn't usually hit them, but a binding door puts extra load on the spring system. DASMA says springs and spring hardware "are under high tension" and that a door with a broken spring should not be operated until the spring is replaced.

The opener. It's indoors, so hail seldom touches it. The risk is indirect. DASMA's TDS 167 checklist says safe operation of the door, opener and its safety reverse "is dependent on a balanced door." A dented door that binds can make the opener strain, stall or reverse. If that starts after a storm, stop using the opener and have the door checked.

After a hailstorm: a short checklist

Photograph first. The Texas Department of Insurance tells homeowners to "take pictures and video of the damage" and to file a claim as soon as they can.
Look before you run it. Check for cracked sections, bent struts, broken glass and rollers out of the track.
Open it once and watch. If any section catches, scrapes or bows, stop.
Don't touch springs, cables or bottom brackets. DASMA's homeowner tips say bottom brackets are "under extreme tension" and should be adjusted only by trained technicians.
Get more than one written estimate. TDI also advises against paying in full up front or signing a contract with blank spaces.

For panel-versus-door decisions and insurance questions, see hail-damaged garage door repair. For the rest of the year's wear (dust, wind and cold), see the Lubbock weather guide for garage doors. Typical prices are in the garage door repair cost guide.

The first half of 2026

The SPC's finished file runs through 2025. NOAA's Storm Events Database already lists five Lubbock County hail reports for January through June 2026. The largest was 1.75 inches at Slaton on May 22, 2026. Those reports aren't in the table above.

How we counted

Source. We downloaded the SPC's 1955-2025 hail file on October 24, 2026, and kept rows where the state is Texas and the first county code is 303 (Lubbock County), for 1996 through 2025. That gave 419 reports. The SPC's format sheet says hail size is in inches and times are in Central Standard Time.
Cross-check. NOAA's Storm Events Database lists 424 Lubbock County hail reports for the same years. The two files are maintained separately, so small differences are normal.
What a report is. A report is an observation sent to the National Weather Service by a spotter, the public, an emergency manager or a station. Counts depend on someone being there to see and report the hail, and on how reporting worked in a given year. The early years have more reports under 1 inch (79 of the 106 small-hail reports came before 2010).
Limits. These are reports, not a measurement of every stone that fell. A month with more reports isn't proven to be more dangerous for a given house; the table shows where hail has been reported, not a forecast.

Updated October 24, 2026. If the SPC revises its file, the numbers here may shift slightly.

Common questions

What month gets the most hail in Lubbock?

May. From 1996 through 2025, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center logged 163 hail reports in Lubbock County in May, on 66 separate days. June was second with 111 reports on 47 days. Together, April, May and June held 82% of all reports.

What is the biggest hail recorded in Lubbock County?

4.5 inches, which the National Weather Service calls softball size. NOAA's file shows 4.5-inch reports on four days since 1996: May 17, 2001; June 17, 2013; May 8, 2015; and June 23, 2023.

Does Lubbock get hail in the fall?

Sometimes. The file has 16 September reports and 5 October reports for 1996-2025, including 3-inch hail on October 4, 2023. No November or December reports appear in those 30 years.

What size hail damages a garage door?

There's no single threshold, because door gauge, insulation and design all matter. The National Weather Service treats 1-inch (quarter-size) hail as severe. Stones that size and larger are the ones to check your door after: look for dents, cracked panels, broken glass and any section that binds.

Can hail damage a garage door opener?

Hail rarely hits the opener, which sits inside. The usual problem is indirect: a dented or bent door can bind, and DASMA's checklist says safe opener operation depends on a balanced door. If the door strains, reverses or stops after a storm, stop using the opener and have the door checked.

Sources (7)

Last updated 2026-10-24