Yes: NEXRAD radar detected hail-bearing storm cells within 10 miles of Mission Viejo on 3 September 2022, with the largest stone sized at about 1 inch, which is right at the threshold where asphalt shingles start to bruise rather than just get wet.
What did the radar actually detect that day
According to NOAA's Severe Weather Data Inventory, the NEXRAD radar logged 3 hail cells over the area on 3 September 2022. The nearest cell was about 9 miles from the centre of Mission Viejo, and the largest stone sized by radar in that detection was about 1 inches.
That date is about 4 years ago now, which matters for anyone wondering whether a roof installed since then was ever exposed to this storm. A roof put on after September 2022 was not under this particular cell. One installed before it was.
Does radar detection mean hail actually fell on my street
Not necessarily. Radar detection means a storm cell over the area carried hail aloft. It is a measurement of what the atmosphere was producing above the cell, not a measurement of what landed on any particular street below it. Hail cores can be narrow, and a cell 9 miles away may have dropped stones in one neighborhood and nothing a mile over.
The storm record for Mission Viejo is built from this kind of radar pass, not from ground reports, so it tells you a hail-producing cell existed near the city on that date. It does not tell you your specific roof took a hit. That gap is exactly why the size and timing matter more than the fact of detection alone.
What does a 1 inch stone actually do to an asphalt roof
Stones around an inch are the size at which asphalt shingles start to bruise. The impact fractures the fiberglass mat underneath the granules without breaking through the surface, so there is no hole and no obvious crack. From the ground, the shingle looks fine.
That bruising is the problem. A fractured mat loses its ability to shed water evenly over time, and the damage tends to show up months or years later as a soft spot or an early leak rather than immediately after the storm. A 1 inch stone is right at the line where this starts, not comfortably below it.
Is it worth having a roof looked at four years later
If the roof was already up on 3 September 2022 and has not been checked since, the detection on record is a reasonable prompt to have someone look, even four years on. Bruised mats do not heal, and they do not always announce themselves with a leak right away.
The honest limit here is that nobody can tell from a radar record alone whether a specific roof was hit, only that a cell capable of producing 1 inch hail passed within 9 miles. A local contractor walking the roof is the only way to settle it. Submitting a request through this service puts it in front of local contractors covering the Mission Viejo ZIP code automatically, in under 60 seconds, and up to 3 of them can take it on.