Strong winds under an upper level jet stream were enhanced perhaps by showers to produce damaging gusts. A 3000 square foot section of a metal roof on Ridgeway High School was blown off, damaging a gas line as well as ceiling tiles below the roof.
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Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
The episode as NWS GJT wrote it up.
Strong winds under an upper level jet stream were enhanced perhaps by showers to produce damaging gusts. A 3000 square foot section of a metal roof on Ridgeway High School was blown off, damaging a gas line as well as ceiling tiles below the roof. Structural engineers determined that it would have taken winds of 80 to 90 mph to have peeled off the roof.
The national radar mosaic for the moment the first event began.
1 high wind. Local standard time, as filed.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Colorado in 1996Every state in 1996This day in weather historyWarnings in Colorado, December 1996
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-10-01. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 5575658.