By touch and distribution, not by eye from the driveway. Functional hail fractures the shingle mat: a soft, bruised spot that sheds granules and will fail early, distributed randomly across the storm facing slopes in the pattern the hail fell. Cosmetic marking is uniform, surface only, and shortens appearance more than life. Fort Bend County logged hail to 1.5 inches over Sugar Land in the decade to 2025, at which sizes functional damage is common enough that an inspection after a logged storm is the default, and its chalk and photo record is what an adjuster grades.
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