You shouldn’t climb onto your own roof to inspect it — that’s genuinely how a lot of DIY roof checks end in an ER visit instead of an answer. But there’s a surprising amount you can spot safely from the ground.
Walk the perimeter of your house and look at the roofline against the sky: are there any shingles that look curled, cracked, or obviously out of place compared to the rest? Check your gutters and the ground below downspouts for accumulated granules, which look like coarse dark sand — a sign that shingles are aging and shedding their protective coating. Look at any exposed metal flashing around chimneys or vents for rust or gaps.
Binoculars help. So does walking around after a storm to look for debris, torn shingle pieces, or dented gutters, which are decent proxies for hail impact on the roof itself. None of this replaces an actual inspection — hail damage especially is often invisible from the ground — but it’s a reasonable way to decide whether it’s worth scheduling one sooner rather than later.