PHOENIX HAIL, OCTOBER 20–21, 2026: THE VERIFIED REPORT LOG

Straight From The NWS

EVERY VERIFIED HAIL REPORT FROM OCTOBER 20–21, 2026

These are the National Weather Service Phoenix office’s local storm reports, converted to Arizona time (MST — Arizona doesn’t observe daylight saving). Locations use the NWS’s own convention: “4 SSE Deer Valley” means about four miles south-southeast of the Deer Valley reference point, not the airport itself. Each row is one observer at one spot, so read the pattern, not just the pins. You can check every entry against the Storm Prediction Center’s report pages for October 20 and October 21, and the NWS Phoenix office.

Tuesday night, October 20 — Chandler, Gilbert & Mesa

Wednesday afternoon, October 21 — north Phoenix, Glendale & Peoria line

The NWS also logged wind damage: power lines down near northeast Mesa (2 ENE Mesa) at 10:20 PM and near Saguaro Lake at 11:00 PM on October 20, and a 60 mph gust measured by a trained spotter 4 ESE of Glendale at 3:30 PM on October 21. Reports this close together in time and space usually mean one storm cell tracking across the map, and the pins sit along that path — so a car parked between two pins most likely took the same hail.

Reading The Sizes

WHAT QUARTER-TO-HEN-EGG HAIL ACTUALLY DOES TO A CAR

Under an inch (penny to nickel, 0.75–0.88″) — the Chandler reports. Hail this size usually leaves no damage on modern steel panels, but a long burst of it, like the “rapidly accumulated” report near Chandler, can leave light dimples on thinner aluminum hoods and roof skins. Worth a look in raking light; often nothing to fix.

Quarter size (1.00″) — the threshold where hoods, roofs and trunk lids start to dent. Mesa, Gilbert, Peoria and the south edge of the north Phoenix storm all logged it. Expect shallow, round dents with the paint intact — the textbook case for paintless dent repair.

Half-dollar to ping-pong (1.25–1.50″) — the core of the October 21 storm around Deer Valley. Dents are deeper and more numerous, and the roof usually takes the most because it faces straight up. Most of it is still paintless dent repair, done panel by panel.

Golf ball to hen egg (1.75–2.00″) — logged twice around Deer Valley, once near Glendale, and once in northeast Mesa. Stones this size can crease panels, crack paint, break sunroofs and windshields, and damage mirror housings and light lenses. Panels with cracked paint need conventional repair instead of PDR, and glass becomes part of the claim.

Where It Hit

NORTH PHOENIX, GLENDALE & THE EAST VALLEY: AREA BY AREA

North Phoenix (October 21). The densest cluster of reports sits in north-central Phoenix along the I-17 corridor. Read from the report coordinates, the pins run roughly from Peoria Avenue north to Deer Valley Road and from about 51st Avenue east to Cave Creek Road — Sunnyslope, North Mountain, Moon Valley and the neighborhoods around the Deer Valley area. Two golf-ball reports came from inside that box at 3:30 and 3:42 PM. Our Phoenix shop on Hatcher Road sits at the south end of it, about a mile from the 6 SSE Deer Valley report. North Phoenix hail repair →

Glendale and Peoria (October 21). The storm’s first reports came from the Glendale and Peoria line at 3:25 PM, quarter size, and the biggest stone of the afternoon — two inches, photographed — came from 4 NE Glendale at 3:34 PM. If you live or park in north Glendale between Peoria and Phoenix, assume your car took the same storm and check it. Glendale hail repair →

Mesa, Gilbert and Chandler (October 20). The Tuesday night storm moved across the East Valley in about twenty minutes. Chandler reports were mostly under an inch; quarter-size hail reached Arizona Avenue and Elliot Road and southwest Mesa by 10:10 PM; and northeast Mesa logged a measured one-inch stone at 10:22 PM and stones up to two inches at 10:25 PM. Cars parked outside overnight in northeast Mesa took the worst of it. Mesa hail repair →

Carefree (October 21). The last report came from east of Carefree at 4:05 PM, nickel size — usually below the damage threshold, but worth a look on aluminum panels.

The Insurance Side

FILING A CLAIM FOR THE OCTOBER 20–21 STORMS IN ARIZONA

Which coverage pays. Hail damage to a car is normally covered under the comprehensive part of an auto policy, not collision. If you carry liability only, there is no coverage for your own car’s hail damage, and cash paintless dent repair is the usual route. Your declarations page shows which coverages you have and your comprehensive deductible.

Use the right date. These were two storms. East Valley damage (Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler) is dated October 20, 2026; north Phoenix, Glendale and Peoria damage is dated October 21, 2026. Filing under the correct date keeps the claim clean, and the NWS reports above are dated evidence you can point an adjuster to.

File promptly. Your policy, not state law, sets how quickly you must report a loss, and most policies ask for prompt notice. Filing within days — with photos taken now — is what keeps a hail claim simple.

You choose the shop. Arizona law says it plainly: under A.R.S. § 20-468, a person in Arizona has the right to choose any repair facility for a motor vehicle loss, and an insurer that recommends a shop must tell you about that right at the same time. You file the claim with your carrier; we write the estimate, document the damage, send supplements when hidden damage turns up, and handle the adjuster correspondence.

Your deductible and the honest-billing line. For qualifying claims from this storm, DG Collision Center covers your deductible up to $2,000, depending on the damage — the amount is set from the actual repair and written on your estimate before work starts. It comes out of our margin as a discount, never from the insurance money: the invoice your carrier pays is the true cost of the repair. That distinction matters. Arizona’s insurance-fraud statute, A.R.S. § 20-463, makes it fraud to knowingly present a false statement — including a bill — in support of a claim, which is exactly what a crew does when it “waives” a deductible by padding the estimate. We don’t. (General information, not legal advice.)

Will it raise your rate? Arizona’s A.R.S. § 20-263 bars an insurer from raising your premium because of an accident you didn’t cause or significantly contribute to. The statute speaks to accidents and doesn’t specifically address hail or other comprehensive claims, so ask your agent how your carrier treats a comprehensive claim before you assume either way.

Who We Are

A TEXAS SHOP IN PHOENIX FOR THIS STORM — HERE’S THE HONEST VERSION

DG Collision Center is a family-owned body shop based in Lewisville, Texas, in business since 1978, with an I-CAR Gold Class floor and a 4.9-star rating across 550+ Google reviews at our home shop. Hail repair is a large part of what we do in North Texas. When these storms hit Phoenix, we opened a shop at 649 W Hatcher Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85021 — in north Phoenix, inside the October 21 hail swath.

Out-of-town storm crews have a mixed reputation, and much of it is earned: pop-up tents, door-to-door pitches, deductibles “waived” by padding the bill, and nobody to call when a dent comes back. Here is what we do instead. We work out of a real shop with an address, not a parking-lot tent. Our prices are published, the same ones on our Texas pages. Every repair comes with our written lifetime warranty on everything except mechanical, from a company that’s been in business for 48 years. And we bill honestly — the deductible offer above comes out of our margin, not your insurer’s check. If you’ve been approached by someone else, our guide to spotting hail repair scams applies in Arizona too.

Practical details: our storm line, (602) 935-6008, is answered 24/7. We pick up and drop off drivable cars for free, we help arrange a rental while your car is with us, and loaner cars from our Texas fleet are being arranged. Se habla español — the whole claim can be handled in Spanish. For pricing, coverage and the full Phoenix offer, see our Phoenix hail repair page.