Part G · the record
The storm record, and where every number came from
Roofing advertising in this market runs on storm numbers, and a surprising number of the numbers in circulation have no source at all. Here is what is actually documented for this county, with the source named beside each figure and the limits of each figure stated.
Hail, as logged
- St. Louis County, 2020 to 2025
- 125 events
- Largest stone logged
- 2.5 inches
- Average stone logged
- 1.32 inches
- St. Charles County
- 54 events
- Jefferson County
- 44 events
- Franklin County
- 30 events
- Source
- NOAA Storm Events
Read those numbers correctly. They are counts of hail reports logged, not counts of insured losses and not counts of damaged roofs. Reporting density tracks population: a stone that falls in a dense suburb gets reported by several people and the same stone falling over farmland may get reported by nobody. St. Louis County has a higher count than Franklin County partly because more hail falls on it and partly because far more people live under it. Anyone quoting a raw county hail count as a measure of risk without saying that is either careless or selling.
Two useful things do survive that caveat. First, the average logged stone in this metro sits a little over an inch, which is squarely in the range that damages an asphalt shingle without producing the dramatic holes a homeowner expects to see. Second, the season is concentrated: April and May carry roughly 56 percent of the metro's annual hail reports, according to NOAA Storm Prediction Center climatology for this forecast area. Spring is when this happens.
May 2025, the tornado
On 16 May 2025 an EF3 tornado moved through the St. Louis area. The National Weather Service rated it EF3 with estimated winds of 152 miles per hour. It began near Clayton at 2:41 in the afternoon and tracked 22.6 miles. Its maximum width was 1.8 miles, which made it the widest tornado in a regional record that begins in 1950. Five people were killed. The damage total of 1.6 billion dollars comes from NCEI rather than from the Weather Service, and the two should be cited separately because they are separate products.
Federal assistance followed under declaration DR-4877-MO, which covered St. Louis City and St. Louis County. That declaration recorded 9,427 approvals for individual assistance, 58.13 million dollars of individuals and households programme money, and 105.01 million dollars of public assistance.
The season in insurance terms
- Missouri catastrophic claims, 2025 season
- 253,241
- Paid
- Over 2.9 billion dollars
- Residential share
- About 83 percent
- Source
- Missouri DCI
Those come from the Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance. Two national rankings also get quoted in this market and they are routinely merged into one sentence, which makes both of them wrong. The Insurance Information Institute, citing NOAA Storm Prediction Center data, put Missouri fifth nationally for major hail events with 253 in 2025. Separately, State Farm ranked Missouri second for hail claim dollars paid. Those are two different measurements from two different organisations. Fifth by event count, second by one insurer's dollars. They are not the same statistic and they do not combine.
The tax credit that expires
This one is real, sourced, expiring, and almost nobody in this market writes about it. RSMo 135.445 created a Missouri tax credit equal to a homestead insurance deductible incurred in 2025, capped at 5,000 dollars and transferable. The programme closes to new credits after 15 October 2026. If you had a covered loss on a Missouri homestead in the 2025 season, that is worth raising with whoever prepares your return, and it is worth raising soon rather than in the spring.
Keys Roofing is a roofing contractor and this is not tax advice. The point of naming the statute is so you can take the number to somebody qualified to act on it before the date passes.
Numbers you will see that this site will not print
Several figures circulate on competitor blogs in this market with no traceable source. They are omitted here deliberately, and if you see them elsewhere you now know what you are looking at.
- A claim of 173,000 Missouri homeowner claims and 1.6 billion dollars attributed to the state insurance department. No such published figure supports it.
- A claim that Missouri had five presidential disaster declarations in 2025, more than any other state.
- Any Missouri specific catastrophe modelling figure attributed to Verisk.
- Any EF2 tornado through Bridgeton, Hazelwood or Florissant in April 2026.
If a roofing advertisement quotes a storm statistic without naming the agency that produced it, treat the statistic as advertising rather than as data.
Ask Keys to look at it
Leave a name, a number and a sentence about what the roof is doing. Keys calls back, comes out, gets on the roof or puts a camera on it, and gives you a written scope with photographs and measurements. There is no charge for that and no obligation attached to it.
If the roof is open to weather right now, do not use this form. Call (314) 220-2333 and say the word emergency.
- Trades
- Roofing, gutters, downspouts
- Shingles
- Atlas and Malarkey
- Not offered
- Siding, windows, commercial
- Status
- Licensed and insured
Keys Roofing does not represent, negotiate or advertise to negotiate on any homeowner insurance claim, because RSMo 407.725 forbids a roofing contractor from doing so. Keys documents the roof and attends on site as the contractor. The claim stays yours.