The nails slip out of the sheathing and create small visible bumps on the surface of your roof.
Roof sheathing bowing.
When plywood or osb sheathing picks up moisture it expands.
Roof sheathing helps distribute weight evenly across your roof.
A broken sagging rafter will also cause a dip in the roof s surface.
The most common cause appears to be movement in the roof sheathing with changes in moisture levels.
However a more pronounced buckling in a line running up the roof like in the photo above is caused by buckling of the edges of the plywood or osb roof sheathing due to water intrusion or extremely high humidity in the attic.
Buckling can occur if the wrong type of nails were used to connect the sheathing to the rafters.
Since sheathing boards are affixed to your roof s trusses and joints its strongest supporting beams they help ensure that heavy loads of snow and precipitation don t cause bowing or sagging.