The Weld County, Colorado Tornadoes of May 22, 2008 (Updated June 11, 2008)
(Image courtesy of Eric Thaler, SOO WFO DEN/BOU. Data source – NOAA/NWS; Map – FEMA)
Jeff Braun
Thursday, May 22, 2008 was truly a day the will live in infamy for many folks in and around the communities of western Weld County (and north eastern Larimer county), Colorado. While the city of Windsor, Colorado sustained the most damage (total amounts still at large), many other towns were also affected by this large early season tornado (Platteville, Gilcrest, Milliken, western Greeley – where there was one fatality -, Timnath, and points just northeast of Fort Collins). Albany County, Wyoming (including the city of Laramie) was also affected and damaged by this same storm early in the afternoon. The area around Dacono, Colorado also took on some damage just after noon on the 22nd as a tornado, connected with a separate severe storm, bounced west of town. This second storm ended up following a near parallel track to the first storm – only was displaced further to the west and remained mostly over the barren foothills as it too tracked to the north-northwest and into southern Wyoming – however, with no additional (apparent) damage.
Interesting atmospheric severe weather set-up for not only the front range of northern Colorado, but for the entire high and central plains region with many more strong tornadoes showing themselves and wreaking havoc in Kansas and Nebraska. Even the west coast of the USA was not untouched by tornadoes on this day – they too being influenced by the massive-deep-digging late season upper level trough.
For more concerning the morning tornadoes of northern Colorado please go to this satellite oriented report at: http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/case_studies/20080522/
Or, The NWS BOU/DEN report at: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=bou&storyid=8556&source=0
Or, for yet another look at the storms and set-up, please go to the CIMMS blog: http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/archives/660 �
1 Comment
You are right about the west coast. We had a water spout a few weeks ago. I’ve heard of it happening a few times, actually. It’s nothing like NC though, where I grew up. There were some scary nights there, when you are told via emergency broadcast that there was a tornado warning for your county. Now, mind you, the county is 50 square miles, so who knew where it was or from which direction it was coming! Also, we didn’t have a storm shelter. So you had to just sit and hope and pray! I’ll live with the occational water spout for now..