Tornadoes · United States · Colorado · 2006
F1 tornado, Pueblo West, Colorado, July 9, 2006
This F1 tornado ran 2.0 miles across Pueblo County on July 9, 2006, touching down at 4:31 PM MDT and reaching 75 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $100,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
F2113 to 157 mph
Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.
F3158 to 206 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
F5261 to 318 mph
Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.
Unrated
The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.
The record
- Rating
- F1
- Date
- July 9, 2006
- Touchdown
- 4:31 PM MDT (22:31 UTC)
- Path length
- 2.0 miles (3.2 km)
- Path width
- 75 yards (69 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $100,000
- County
- Pueblo County
- Touchdown point
- 38.330, -104.750
- Lift-off point
- 38.330, -104.750
- Record number
- 722
What the Weather Service recorded
A non-supercell thunderstorm developed when two boundaries collided, which subsequently formed a short-lived tornado. The track of the tornado extended from The National Horsemans Arena near McCulloch Blvd. to Purcell Blvd. near a large grocery store. On the F-scale, the tornado was rated F1 at its maximum strength. The tornado cut a path, ranging from 50 feet to 200 feet wide, starting at The National Horsemans Arena. After touching down just west of the Arena, It knocked down a section of fence and shattered windows in a structure at an arena just to the east of the fence. The tornado moved on to the southern end of a campground, flipping over a trailer and ripping the sheet metal roofing off a building. It moved east-southeastward across several businesses between Industrial Blvd. and U.S. Highway 50. A lawn care business building had a large section of its eastern wall destroyed. Several trailers, boats, and vehicles were moved by the high winds. The weakening tornado struck a rather well anchored chain link fence just west of Purcell Blvd., damaging an 85 foot section of the fence. It then crossed that property, slightly damaging the fence on the other side of the property, as it weakening further.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17:00 UTC | 04:50 UTC | Flash Flood Watch | PUB |
| 22:34 UTC | 23:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | PUB |
| 23:00 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | PUB |
| 23:23 UTC | 23:35 UTC | Tornado Warning | PUB |
Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.
The forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:59 UTC.
SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.
The air that afternoon
The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.
Denver, CO (KDNR), 12:00Z
10.5 hours before the tornado, 216 km from the path. July 9, 2006.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 85 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -9 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 41 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 562 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 21 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 14 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 80 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 87 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.1 K/km
Denver, CO (KDNR), 00:00Z
1.5 hours after it, 216 km from the path. July 10, 2006.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- 0 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 17 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 545 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 17 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 7 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 17 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 125 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.6 K/km
The surface observations
Pueblo Memorial(Aw) (PUB), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20:53 UTC | 79 | 55 | 5 kt | 1016.9 | ||
| 21:53 UTC | 74 | 59 | 170° 11 kt | 1016.9 | ||
| 22:31 UTC | 73.4 | 57.2 | 190° 13 kt | 20 | 1016.9 | VCTS |
| 22:53 UTC | 68 | 60 | 350° 10 kt | 20 | 1018.3 | TS |
| 23:06 UTC | 66.2 | 60.8 | 360° 10 kt | 18 | 1018.6 | -TSRA |
| 23:29 UTC | 64.4 | 60.8 | 330° 16 kt | 24 | 1018.3 | TSRA BR |
| 23:53 UTC | 65 | 62 | 10° 15 kt | 1018.3 | VCTS -RA BR | |
| 00:16 UTC | 66.2 | 62.6 | 350° 10 kt | 1019 | -RA BR | |
| 00:25 UTC | 64.4 | 62.6 | 340° 10 kt | 1018.6 | -RA |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Pueblo radar (KPUX), 52 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:32 UTC.
Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track
Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:31 UTC | TORNADO | 2 E Pueblo West | Pueblo, CO | |
| 23:22 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 5 N Pueblo West | Pueblo, CO | COUNTY SHERIFF REPORTED WATER RESCUES IN NORTHERN PUEBLO WEST. |
| 23:34 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 8 N Pueblo | Pueblo, CO | VEHICLES REPORTED STUCK IN HIGH WATER AT EXIT 108 ON I-25. ONE FOOT OF WATER OVER OVERTON ROAD AT 1800 AND 1900 BLOCKS |
| 23:45 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 5 Ne Pueblo | Pueblo, CO | OVERTON ROAD AT 2500 BLOCK IMPASSABLE |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2006 tornado in ColoradoEvery tornado in Colorado since 1950Warnings in force in Colorado nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of July 9, 2006
2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
What this means
Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.