Tornado in Colorado, October 11, 1997

Name: Tornado in Colorado, October 11, 1997
Start: 1997-10-11T20:12
End: 1997-10-11T20:13
Location: Colorado

October 11, 1997 · NWS PUB · 1 event in 1 county or zone

1 tornado, as filed by the National Weather Service.

Where it happened

Every event with a place to put it. Tap one for its entry below.

Tornadoes
Tropical storms and surge
Floods
Wind
Hail
Winter weather
Heat and drought
Cold
Fire, smoke and dust
Marine and coastal
Other

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The toll

Deaths: 0
Injuries: 0
Property damage: None recorded
Crop damage: None recorded
Events: 1

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 radar

The Pueblo radar (KPUX), 91 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the first event began at 03:12 UTC.

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Event by event

1 tornado. Local standard time, as filed.

Tornado, Bent

When: October 11, 8:12 PM MST to 8:13 PM MST
Where: Bent County, 4 mi WSW of Las Animas
Rating: F0
Path length: 0.1 mi
Path width: 50 yd
Coordinates: 38.050, -103.280

The same supercell thunderstorm which spawned a tornado in southeast Otero county in the Higbee Valley dropped a brief, weak tornado west southwest of Las Animas in a ranch land area. Grass was laid down, but there was no known property or crop damage. Knowledge of this and other supercell tornadic thunderstorms moving east of La Junta prompted law enforcement to stop an eastbound Amtrak train and evacuate the 300 passengers around 9:00 p.m. The train was allowed to travel on to Chicago around 11:00 p.m.

What these are

Tornado: A violently rotating column of air in contact with the ground and extending from a thunderstorm, filed with its path, width and Fujita or Enhanced Fujita rating from the damage survey.

After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.

The same day elsewhere

Every storm in Colorado in 1997 Every state in 1997 This day in weather history The tornado archive for Colorado, 1997 Warnings in Colorado, October 1997

Sources

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: 5621847.