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The costliest tornado to roll through Colorado also turned out to be among the most unusual.
A year later, the powerful storm that carved a path through northern Colorado continues to leave meteorologists scratching their heads because of the near-perfect elixir of humidity, temperature and wind speed witnessed on that cool morning. Nearly every aspect of the storm defied conventional wisdom about tornadoes in northern Colorado, according to Nolan Doesken, Colorado State University climatologist. That is likely a reason it wreaked so much havoc on Weld.
“This was the ideal situation for a tornado,” Doesken said. “All the meteorology was right for having a large tornado — but a situation like that doesn’t occur very often.”
The tornado began unusually early on May 22, 2008, touching down about 11:30 a.m. — the first sign the tornado was breaking with traditional weather patterns. In Colorado, the vast majority of tornadoes form between 2 and 7 p.m., when temperatures are highest.
And while most tornadoes would have tracked east, this storm took a rare path northwest — straight for Windsor.
“Most summers it would never happen,” Doesken said. “I still remember this from a year ago and being very puzzled from what I’m hearing.”
The unusual track of the storm could be traced to an intense low pressure system positioned roughly 800 miles to the southwest over Las Vegas, according to the Regional and Mesoscale Meteorology Branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service.
The low pressure system spun air counterclockwise over the western United States and caused storms in northern Colorado that day to move northwest.
What resulted was a tornado that carved a longer path than any tornado in northern Colorado history and also moved faster than most tornadoes. Generally, the topography of the region breaks up tornadoes before they have the chance to travel so far.
The tornado that headed for Windsor tracked 34 miles before dissipating near Wellington.
“This was a Midwestern-style severe storm situation, not the normal kind of lightweight tornadoes like Colorado — particularly Weld County — is prone to,” Doesken said. “This was the real deal.”
While the mechanics of the tornado go against the grain of traditional Colorado meteorological thought, the damage levied by the storm left little doubt as to its power.
Surveys of damage determined that winds reached as high as 150 mph, enough to rate the milewide tornado an EF-2 or EF-3 on the Enhanced Fujita scale.
Such expansive tornadoes often feature multiple vortexes, Doesken said, wherein smaller “tornadoes” form along the outer edge of the tornado.
Robert Henson, a writer and editor for the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, compared the phenomenon to the Tilt-A-Whirl carnival ride, wherein smaller vortexes spin along the outside at a faster rate — thus leaving an unusual path of destruction.
Ultimately, the uncommon nature of the storm has made it a focal point of research about why the tornado operated in such an unusual manner.
“This tornado is definitely going to go down in Colorado history as one of a handful of particularly strong, particularly unusual in its path and nature,” Henson said.
A year later, the powerful storm that carved a path through northern Colorado continues to leave meteorologists scratching their heads because of the near-perfect elixir of humidity, temperature and wind speed witnessed on that cool morning. Nearly every aspect of the storm defied conventional wisdom about tornadoes in northern Colorado, according to Nolan Doesken, Colorado State University climatologist. That is likely a reason it wreaked so much havoc on Weld.
“This was the ideal situation for a tornado,” Doesken said. “All the meteorology was right for having a large tornado — but a situation like that doesn’t occur very often.”
The tornado began unusually early on May 22, 2008, touching down about 11:30 a.m. — the first sign the tornado was breaking with traditional weather patterns. In Colorado, the vast majority of tornadoes form between 2 and 7 p.m., when temperatures are highest.
And while most tornadoes would have tracked east, this storm took a rare path northwest — straight for Windsor.
“Most summers it would never happen,” Doesken said. “I still remember this from a year ago and being very puzzled from what I’m hearing.”
The unusual track of the storm could be traced to an intense low pressure system positioned roughly 800 miles to the southwest over Las Vegas, according to the Regional and Mesoscale Meteorology Branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service.
The low pressure system spun air counterclockwise over the western United States and caused storms in northern Colorado that day to move northwest.
What resulted was a tornado that carved a longer path than any tornado in northern Colorado history and also moved faster than most tornadoes. Generally, the topography of the region breaks up tornadoes before they have the chance to travel so far.
The tornado that headed for Windsor tracked 34 miles before dissipating near Wellington.
“This was a Midwestern-style severe storm situation, not the normal kind of lightweight tornadoes like Colorado — particularly Weld County — is prone to,” Doesken said. “This was the real deal.”
While the mechanics of the tornado go against the grain of traditional Colorado meteorological thought, the damage levied by the storm left little doubt as to its power.
Surveys of damage determined that winds reached as high as 150 mph, enough to rate the milewide tornado an EF-2 or EF-3 on the Enhanced Fujita scale.
Such expansive tornadoes often feature multiple vortexes, Doesken said, wherein smaller “tornadoes” form along the outer edge of the tornado.
Robert Henson, a writer and editor for the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, compared the phenomenon to the Tilt-A-Whirl carnival ride, wherein smaller vortexes spin along the outside at a faster rate — thus leaving an unusual path of destruction.
Ultimately, the uncommon nature of the storm has made it a focal point of research about why the tornado operated in such an unusual manner.
“This tornado is definitely going to go down in Colorado history as one of a handful of particularly strong, particularly unusual in its path and nature,” Henson said.
