The monsoon does not test your roof gently. It delivers a large share of the year's rainfall in a few violent afternoons, often with hail and gusting wind attached, and it finds every detail that was installed carelessly. The good news is that most storm damage announces itself if you know what to look at, and almost none of it requires getting on a ladder.
Start in the yard. Asphalt granules washed out of the downspout splash zone look like coarse black sand, and a pile of them after one storm means the shingle surface is being stripped. Look for whole shingle tabs or pieces of metal trim in the yard or against the fence, and check the ground under the eaves for pieces of pipe boot rubber.
Then look up from the ground, ideally from across the street with the sun low. Missing tabs read as darker rectangles against the field of the roof. Lifted shingles along the ridges and rakes cast small shadows that were not there before. On a metal roof, look along the panel lines for anything that has visibly moved, and check the ridge cap. On a flat roof you can often see a bubbled or open seam from a second-story window.
Inside, check the attic if you have one, with a flashlight and no lights on. Daylight through the deck is obvious, but wet or darkened sheathing, and rusty nail shanks, are the earlier signals. On ceilings, the stain is rarely under the leak — water runs along rafters and decking before it drops, sometimes several feet.
Hail is its own question. Adjusters are looking for bruising: soft dark circles where the granules were knocked off and the mat underneath was damaged. Cosmetic granule loss without bruising usually will not carry a claim, and any roofer who promises you a free roof from a light hail event before they have looked at it is telling you what you want to hear.
If something looks off, get it documented before you call your insurer. A dated, photographed condition report costs you nothing from us and gives your adjuster something concrete to work from. It also protects you the other way: if the roof is fine, you have proof of that too, and you have not opened a claim you did not need.