Wind gust 62 mph
1 NE Bensenville DuPage County
“ASOS site ORD Chicago Ohare Airport reported 62 mph peak gust. (LOT)”
— NOAA / SPC storm report
Hail in Des Plaines Jul 27, 2026
Hit 7 days agoThe radar-estimated size surface caught this storm, reaching 1.25" aloft. NEXRAD logged no point detections over Des Plaines this day.
Largest hailstone
1.25"
≈ half-dollar · radar-estimated size aloft Homes in the hail footprint
47,437
Ground reports
1
1 windThe most severe storm Des Plaines has seen in the last 12 months
Storm severity score
Overview's storm severity score weighs hailstone size, homes in the footprint, and ground-truth reports.
4.5 /10
- Hail size
- 31 /100
- Homes exposed
- 94 /100
- Ground truth
- 17 /100
Largest hailstone — the top predictor of roof damage.
How many homes sit inside the storm's footprint.
Independent storm reports filed with the NWS.
How Des Plaines saw the hail — from two instruments
Each storm gets two readings: the radar signatures NEXRAD recorded as the cells passed overhead, and a modeled estimate of hail size in the air. They are independent surfaces, so a mismatch between them is expected — and worth reading.
Radar-estimated hail size
Radar-estimated hail size over the swath. The model reports the biggest stone the storm could sustain in the air; what actually fell may have been smaller.
Max size
1.25"
Only the radar-estimated size surface resolved for Jul 27, 2026 — this storm produced no NEXRAD point detections over Des Plaines, so there is one map to show, not two.
Where Jul 27, 2026 sits in Des Plaines's hail record
This was Des Plaines's 3rd recorded hail day, arriving 25 days after the Jul 2, 2026 storm. By severity it ranks 1st of the 3 storms we have logged here. Radar put the day's largest stone over Des Plaines at 1.25" — radar-estimated size aloft.
The Jul 27, 2026 convective day was bigger than Des Plaines: the same system put hail over 803 other tracked cities, 130 of them in Illinois. Nearest: Elk Grove Village (5 miles west, up to 1.75"); Berkeley (7 miles south, up to 1.75"); Melrose Park (7 miles south, up to 1.75").
These maps are stills from Des Plaines's Jul 27, 2026 storm. In the Overview app the same surfaces are live — radar updating in real time, radar-estimated hail size as it forms, and NWS spotter reports pinned where they're filed — with a radar replay you can scrub back over any past day.
What people on the ground reported
These are storm reports filed with the National Weather Service and released through the NOAA Storm Prediction Center — public-domain observations from spotters, the public, and NWS surveys. We quote each one exactly as filed.
Wind reports
1 report
Storm forensics
Read from the arrival times and locations of the NOAA ground reports,
not a radar-measured storm track.
How the storm moved
Reports came from Bensenville — beyond Des Plaines itself.
What 1.25" hail means for Des Plaines roofs
Quarter-size and larger hail is where asphalt shingle damage starts in earnest: bruised mats and granule loss that homeowners can't see from the ground. Most people inside the footprint won't know their roof was hit until someone inspects it.
What this storm is worth to a roofer
$569M
Potential roof exposure — 47,437 homes × the ~$12,000 industry-average hail roof claim. Exposure, not confirmed damage.
Illustrative jobs
237 jobs
Illustrative work
~$3.6M
Claims from this storm can typically be filed until around July 2028 — the window to reach these homeowners while it's still open. Deadlines vary by policy and state.
Track hail over Des Plaines on the live map
Radar updates in real time, spotter reports appear on the map as they're filed, and the full Des Plaines storm history — this Jul 27, 2026 storm included — sits underneath. When you're ready, draw this storm's footprint and pull highly accurate homeowner contact information for every address inside it.
Highly accurate contact information starting at $0.23 per address — every contact included. Digital leads cost $15–$40. Start with a 7-day free trial — no credit card required. See pricing
Des Plaines hail history
← All hail in Des Plaines 3 recorded storm days in Des Plaines, IL
Other storms in Des Plaines
A storm day here is a convective day — it runs from noon to noon
UTC, so late-night hail is grouped with the afternoon storm that
spawned it rather than split across two calendar dates. Ground
reports are public-domain observations from the NOAA Storm
Prediction Center. Radar surfaces are detections and estimates,
not confirmed damage. Last updated Aug 3, 2026.