# Storm Hail Damage Leads — NOAA Reports to Affected Addresses (`industrious_emphasis/storm-hail-lead-finder`) Actor

Turns NOAA SPC hail reports into a deduplicated list of street addresses inside each hail swath buffer. Built for roofing lead gen, storm-marketing agencies, and AI agents.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/industrious\_emphasis/storm-hail-lead-finder.md
- **Developed by:** [Brock Bangasser](https://apify.com/industrious_emphasis) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, Real estate
- **Stats:** 5 total users, 1 monthly users, 94.1% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $15.00 / 1,000 affected address returneds

This Actor is paid per event and usage. You are charged both the fixed price for specific events and for Apify platform usage.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
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- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Storm Hail Damage Leads — NOAA Hail Reports → Affected Street Addresses

Turn yesterday's hailstorm into today's canvassing list. This Actor pulls official **NOAA Storm Prediction Center hail reports**, buffers each report point, and returns a **deduplicated list of street addresses inside the impact zone** — with hail size, distance from the report, county, and timestamps on every row. JSON, CSV, or Excel out; run it on a schedule or call it from your CRM, workflow tool, or AI agent.

Built for **roofing contractors, storm-restoration marketers, exterior-cleaning and auto-hail (PDR) companies, direct-mail houses, and proptech/insurtech developers** who need raw, programmatic storm-impact data — not another $100+/month dashboard subscription.

### Why this instead of a hail-map subscription?

| | Hail map SaaS (HailTrace, HailWatch, Hail Recon…) | This Actor |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $65–$119+/month subscriptions; single storm maps sold for ~$230 | Pay per use — a typical full run costs a few dollars |
| Access | Dashboard + sales call for data exports | API-first: schedule it, pipe it to Sheets/CRM/webhooks, call it from code or AI agents |
| Output | Maps you look at | Structured address rows you act on |
| Commitment | Annual/monthly plans | None. Run it after a storm, skip quiet weeks |

Those platforms are excellent at what they do (meteorologist-verified swath maps). This Actor is the **unbundled, programmatic slice**: official public data, straight to rows, priced per result.

### Coverage — United States (for now)

Hail events come from NOAA's Storm Prediction Center, so this Actor covers the **contiguous United States**. Filter with US state codes (`TX`, `MN`, …); a storm outside the US won't appear, because it isn't in the SPC feed.

Only the **hail-report source** is US-bound — the address lookup is global. Adding a country means bolting its severe-weather feed onto the same buffer/dedup/address pipeline: Canada (Environment and Climate Change Canada), Europe (ESWD), Australia (Bureau of Meteorology). On the roadmap; paid demand moves a region up the list.

### What you get

Each **address row**:

```json
{
  "type": "address",
  "address": "1234 Main Street, Example City 75001",
  "house_number": "1234",
  "street": "Main Street",
  "city": "Example City",
  "postcode": "75001",
  "address_lat": 32.7810,
  "address_lon": -96.8010,
  "distance_miles": 0.42,
  "hail_size_in": 1.75,
  "event_id": "20260706-2005-32.78--96.80",
  "event_date": "2026-07-06",
  "event_time_utc": "2005",
  "event_location": "4 W EXAMPLE CITY",
  "county": "EXAMPLE",
  "state": "TX",
  "event_lat": 32.78,
  "event_lon": -96.80,
  "event_comments": "Golf ball sized hail reported by trained spotter. (XXX)",
  "address_source": "osm"
}
```

Plus one **event\_summary row per hail report** (size, location, time, how many addresses were found) — so `addressSource: "none"` gives you a cheap storm-monitoring feed on its own. Every run also ends with a single free **run\_summary row**: a receipt of what was checked and found, so "no hail matched your filter" is an explicit answer, never an empty table.

Addresses are **deduplicated across overlapping reports**: each address appears once, tagged with the largest hail size that hit it and the shortest distance. Results are sorted biggest-hail-first, so caps keep the highest-value leads.

### How to use it

1. Pick the day(s): `today` (live-updating), `yesterday` (most recent complete day — the default), `last3days`, or a custom `dateRange`.
2. Filter: `states` (e.g. `["TX","OK"]`), `minHailSizeInches` (default 1.0 — quarter-size, the usual roof-damage threshold), `radiusMiles` buffer (default 1.5).
3. Control spend: `maxReports` and `maxAddresses` hard-cap what a run can bill.
4. Run once from the console, or **schedule it daily during storm season** and connect the dataset to Google Sheets, your CRM, Make/Zapier/n8n, or a webhook.

#### Common recipes

- **"Who got hit in my state yesterday?"** — `dateMode: yesterday`, `states: ["TX"]` (swap in your own), defaults elsewhere.
- **Daily storm-season monitor (cheap):** schedule with `addressSource: "none"`; alert your team when `event_summary` rows appear, then re-run with addresses for the events you care about.
- **Direct-mail batch:** `minHailSizeInches: 1.25`, `radiusMiles: 2`, `maxAddresses: 5000`, export CSV to your mail house.
- **Storm-day damage sweep for a metro:** `dateRange` over the event, one state, `maxReports: 100`.

### Address sources — pick your tradeoff

- **`osm` (default, zero setup):** queries OpenStreetMap's Overpass API around each report. Works instantly, no keys. Coverage is strong in most metros and suburbs, thinner in some rural counties — where OSM lacks address points, you'll get fewer rows (you're never billed for rows you don't get).
- **`openaddresses_grid` (scale mode):** near-complete government-sourced address coverage. One-time setup: shard a free OpenAddresses export with the included script and host the shards on S3/any static host, then set `openAddressesBaseUrl`. Runs then fetch only the few grid cells intersecting the storm buffer.
- **`none`:** events only — the monitoring feed.

### Input reference & common mistakes

You don't need to get this perfect. Wrong-but-unambiguous values are fixed for you (and noted in the log); genuinely ambiguous ones make the run finish with a **receipt that tells you what to change** — never a blank failure. Every run ends with a `run_summary` row, so "nothing happened" is always explained.

| Field | Accepts | If you get it wrong |
|---|---|---|
| `dateMode` | `today`, `yesterday`, `last3days`, `dateRange` | Unknown/misspelled → receipt lists the valid options |
| `startDate`, `endDate` | `YYYY-MM-DD`, and only with `dateRange` | Missing, impossible (`2026-02-30`), reversed, or range >31 days → receipt explains the fix. Reversed dates are auto-swapped |
| `states` | 2-letter US codes: `TX`, `FL`. A list `["TX","OK"]` or a string `"tx, ok"` | Lowercase is auto-uppercased; full names (`Texas`) and typos (`ZZ`) are dropped with a warning; **empty = all states** |
| `minHailSizeInches` | `0.25`–`6.0` (1.0 = quarter, 1.75 = golf ball) | Out of range is clamped; non-numeric falls back to `1.0` — both logged |
| `radiusMiles` | `0.1`–`10` | Clamped / defaulted to `1.5`, logged |
| `maxReports` | `1`–`500` | Clamped / defaulted to `25`, logged |
| `maxAddresses` | `1`–`100000` | Clamped / defaulted to `500`, logged |
| `maxRuntimeSeconds` | `0`–`3600` (`0` = no limit) | If the budget is hit, the run returns partial results plus a note telling you to raise it |
| `addressSource` | `osm`, `openaddresses_grid`, `none` | Unknown/misspelled (`OSM`, `openstreetmap`) → receipt lists valid options |
| `openAddressesBaseUrl` | public `http(s)` URL — required only for `openaddresses_grid` | Missing in grid mode, or an unsafe/internal/malformed URL → receipt explains |
| `overpassEndpoint` | public `http(s)` URL | Internal/loopback/malformed URLs are refused with a message (SSRF guard) |
| `overpassDelaySeconds` | `0`–`30` | Clamped / defaulted to `2`, logged |
| `contactEmail` | a plain email address | Control characters are stripped automatically; never fatal |

**Quickest correct first run:** set `dateMode` to `yesterday`, leave everything else at its default.

### Honest notes on the data (read this)

- **SPC reports are point observations** (spotters, trained observers, emergency management), not radar-derived swaths. The `radiusMiles` buffer approximates the damage area around each confirmed report; it will not trace the exact swath shape the way meteorologist-drawn maps do. Roadmap: NOAA MRMS **MESH** radar hail-size grids for true swath polygons.
- **"Today" fills in over hours** — reports trickle in during and after the storm. For complete data, run `yesterday`. SPC convective days run 12:00 UTC to 12:00 UTC.
- **No hit guarantee:** a report of 1.75" hail plus a 1.5-mile buffer means damage is *likely* nearby, not certain at any specific address.
- **No personal data.** Output is addresses and public storm data only — no owner names, phones, or emails. Pair with your own compliant enrichment/outreach stack and follow the laws that apply to you (e.g., TCPA for calls/texts, CAN-SPAM for email, local door-knocking rules).
- **Sources & terms:** NOAA/SPC data is US-government public domain. OpenStreetMap data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL — if you redistribute OSM-derived rows, attribution applies. OpenAddresses data carries per-source licenses (most permissive; check your state's sources).
- **Hardened by design:** user-supplied endpoints are validated (http/https only, internal/metadata hosts refused), all downloads are size-capped with zip-bomb protection, URLs are redacted in logs, and every run's spend is bounded by `maxReports`/`maxAddresses`. No logins, no CAPTCHAs, no personal data — just public endpoints used as intended.

### Pricing

Pay-per-event: a flat actor start ($0.02) + per hail event analyzed ($0.002) + per address returned ($15/1,000). Worked example: 25 events, 500 addresses → **about $7.57 for a ready-to-work storm lead list.** One storm map from the leading SaaS costs ~$230; one retail roofing lead costs $80–$220. Failed runs aren't charged, and `maxAddresses` caps every run's spend.

### FAQ

**Is this legal?** The Actor reads official public government data (NOAA/SPC) and openly licensed address datasets via their intended public endpoints. No logins, no CAPTCHAs, no personal data.

**Why did an event return zero addresses?** Rural report with sparse OSM coverage, or the buffer landed on farmland. Try `openaddresses_grid` mode or a larger radius.

**Can my AI agent call this?** Yes — every published Apify Actor is callable via API and exposed through Apify's MCP server, so agents can run it and read the dataset directly.

**Can you add wind/tornado reports, MESH swaths, or owner-occupancy flags?** That's the roadmap. Open an issue on the Actor page — paid usage moves features up the list.

# Actor input Schema

## `dateMode` (type: `string`):

The only required choice. Pick a preset, or pick 'Custom date range' and fill in the two date fields below (they are ignored otherwise). Note: NOAA 'convective days' run 12:00 UTC to 12:00 UTC, and 'Today' is still filling in — 'Yesterday' is the most recent complete day.

## `startDate` (type: `string`):

Ignored unless 'Which storm day(s)' above is set to 'Custom date range'. Format YYYY-MM-DD. Max 31 days per run.

## `endDate` (type: `string`):

Ignored unless 'Which storm day(s)' above is set to 'Custom date range'. Format YYYY-MM-DD.

## `states` (type: `array`):

Optional. 2-letter US state codes like TX, FL, OK. Leave empty to include every state — recommended for a first run so you always see live data.

## `minHailSizeInches` (type: `number`):

Optional, default 1.0 (quarter size — the typical roof-damage threshold). 1.75 = golf ball. Lower it for more, weaker events.

## `radiusMiles` (type: `number`):

Optional, default 1.5. Addresses within this distance of each hail report are returned. 1-2 miles is sensible; max 10.

## `maxReports` (type: `integer`):

Optional, default 25. Biggest hail is processed first, so a low cap keeps the most damaging events. This is your cost control on big storm days.

## `maxAddresses` (type: `integer`):

Optional, default 500. Hard cap on billed address rows for the whole run.

## `addressSource` (type: `string`):

Default (OpenStreetMap) needs zero setup. 'OpenAddresses grid' is for operators hosting their own pre-sharded address data (see README). 'Events only' skips addresses entirely — cheap storm monitoring.

## `openAddressesBaseUrl` (type: `string`):

Required only when Address source is 'OpenAddresses grid'; ignored otherwise. Public base URL of shards produced by scripts/preprocess\_openaddresses.py (see README).

## `overpassEndpoint` (type: `string`):

Leave the default unless you run your own OpenStreetMap Overpass server or prefer a specific mirror.

## `overpassDelaySeconds` (type: `number`):

Politeness delay for the shared public endpoint, default 2. Only lower it on a private endpoint.

## `maxRuntimeSeconds` (type: `integer`):

Optional, default 270. Address lookups stop after this many seconds and the run returns what it has (a partial list beats a timed-out, failed run). Raise it — or set 0 for no limit — for large multi-state runs where you want every address.

## `contactEmail` (type: `string`):

Added to the HTTP User-Agent per OpenStreetMap etiquette so operators can reach you instead of blocking you. Recommended if you schedule frequent runs.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "dateMode": "yesterday",
  "states": [],
  "minHailSizeInches": 1,
  "radiusMiles": 1.5,
  "maxReports": 5,
  "maxAddresses": 100,
  "addressSource": "osm",
  "overpassEndpoint": "https://overpass-api.de/api/interpreter",
  "overpassDelaySeconds": 1,
  "maxRuntimeSeconds": 270
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `leads` (type: `string`):

No description

## `leadsCsv` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "dateMode": "yesterday",
    "maxReports": 5,
    "maxAddresses": 100,
    "overpassDelaySeconds": 1
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("industrious_emphasis/storm-hail-lead-finder").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "dateMode": "yesterday",
    "maxReports": 5,
    "maxAddresses": 100,
    "overpassDelaySeconds": 1,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("industrious_emphasis/storm-hail-lead-finder").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "dateMode": "yesterday",
  "maxReports": 5,
  "maxAddresses": 100,
  "overpassDelaySeconds": 1
}' |
apify call industrious_emphasis/storm-hail-lead-finder --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,industrious_emphasis/storm-hail-lead-finder"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/8wxDjsSJ3Xye9RqQO/builds/VfaSwA9E5xB6hqeUI/openapi.json