Tornadoes · United States · Colorado · 2008

EF0 tornado, Yuma, Colorado, June 4, 2008

Name: EF0 tornado, Yuma, Colorado, June 4, 2008
Start: 2008-06-04T21:01:00.000Z
End: 2008-06-04T21:03:00.000Z
Location: Yuma, Colorado

This EF0 tornado ran 0.7 miles across Yuma County on June 4, 2008, touching down at 3:01 PM MDT and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
EF2111 to 135 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.
EF3136 to 165 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
EF5over 200 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: EF0
Date: June 4, 2008
Touchdown: 3:01 PM MDT (21:01 UTC)
Lifted: 3:03 PM MDT (21:03 UTC)
On the ground: 2 minutes
Path length: 0.7 miles (1.1 km)
Path width: 25 yards (23 m)
Deaths: 0
Injuries: 0
County: Yuma County
Touchdown point: 40.080, -102.742
Lift-off point: 40.080, -102.742
Record number: 0806041501-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A series of severe thunderstorms developed in a SW-NE line and moved northeast, producing repeated heavy rain and hail episodes from northern Yuma County Colorado eastward across Dundy and Hitchcock counties in Nebraska. Several flash flood reports, and dozens of large hail reports were received. Several brief tornadoes were also reported, but no damage was observed.

Tornado lasted approximately two minutes with no known damage occurring.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

The forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:01 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.

What forecasters said that day

The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.

NWS Goodland, KS wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Jun 4, 2:00 PM MDT, 1 hour 1 minute earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Jun 4, 2:00 PM MDT, 1 hour 1 minute before

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GOODLAND KS
200 PM MDT WED JUN 4 2008

.DISCUSSION...FORECAST CONCERNS ARE PRECIPITATION AMOUNTS AND
AREAL COVERAGE ALONG WITH TEMPERATURES THROUGH THURSDAY NIGHT.

AN UPPER LEVEL LOW CURRENTLY MOVING INTO CENTRAL NEVADA WILL MOVE
INTO THE FOUR CORNERS REGION BY 12Z THURSDAY THEN LIFT NORTHEAST
INTO THE TRI-STATE AREA BY 00Z FRIDAY LIFTING NORTHEAST INTO
MINNESOTA BY 00Z SATURDAY. FROM 00Z SATURDAY THROUGH 00Z SUNDAY
ANOTHER UPPER LOW WILL SPIN OVER THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST AREA WITH
SOUTHWEST FLOW ACROSS OUR AREA.

DEEPEST MOISTURE AND BETTER JET DYNAMICS WILL CONTINUE TO FAVOR
THE NORTHWEST/WEST AND NORTHERN PORTIONS OF THE AREA FOR
PRECIPITATION WITH MUCH LESSER AMOUNTS ACROSS THE FAR
EAST/SOUTHEAST. THIS IS GENERALLY HOW THE POP/WX/QPF ORIENTATION
IS AT PRESENT TIME AND ONLY MINOR ADJUSTMENTS NEED TO BE MADE.
PRECIPITATION CHANCES WILL END BY OR SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT
THURSDAY NIGHT AS THE UPPER LOW AND TROUGH LIFTS OUT OF THE AREA.

TEMPERATURES THURSDAY WILL BE DIFFICULT GIVEN DIFFERENCES IN THE
SPEED OF THE FRONT...GENERALLY COOLEST IN THE WEST AND WARMEST IN
THE EAST. TEMPERATURES REBOUND INTO THE 80S ON THURSDAY WITH
PLENTY OF SUNSHINE AS SUBSIDENCE BEHIND THE LOW IS PREVALENT. FOR
SATURDAY ITS NOT LOOKING AS HOT AS PREVIOUSLY EXPECTED WITH LOW
TO MID 80S ACROSS THE NORTH AND LOW/MID 90S ACROSS THE FAR SOUTH.

IN THE EXTENDED PERIODS (SUNDAY-WEDNESDAY)...LOTS OF DISCREPANCY
IN THE HANDLING OF BOTH UPPER AND LOW LEVEL WEATHER FEATURES.
THERE ARE VERY LARGE DISCREPANCIES IN 850 TEMPERATURES BY SOME 30
DEGREES BETWEEN THE GFS/ECMWF. GIVEN SUCH A LARGE DEGREE OF
DISCREPANCY AND CURRENT MODERATE RISK/TORNADO WATCH OVER THE AREA
HAVE USED HPC GUIDANCE FOR EXTENDED GRIDS.

DDT

&&

.AVIATION...
CONVECTIVE CHANCES ARE THE MAIN FORECAST PROBLEMS FOR
THE 18Z KMCK/KGLD TAFS. WILL DELAY THE ONSET OF CONVECTION AT
KMCK TIL 02Z WITH A SLIGHTLY EARLIER START TIME AT KGLD. COLD
FRONT WILL MOVE THROUGH THE TAF SITES DURING THE NIGHT. SOME
MODELS ARE BRINGING LIFR CONDITIONS AFTER THE FRONT PASSES...BUT
WILL NOT BRING THE CEILINGS THAT LOW.

MENTZER

&&

.HYDROLOGY...

FLASH FLOOD WATCH IN EFFECT FOR
DECATUR...NORTON...SHERIDAN...GRAHAM AND GOVE COUNTIES OF KANSAS
AS WELL AS HITCHCOCK AND RED WILLOW COUNTIES OF NEBRASKA THROUGH
12Z THURSDAY.

UPPER FLOW AND MOISTURE AND LIFT WILL FAVOR QPF AMOUNTS GENERALLY
ALONG AND NORTH OF THE INTERSTATE WITH HIGHEST AMOUNTS GENERALLY
ALONG AND NORTH OF HIGHWAY 36 NEAR THE KS/NE BORDER. NOT REAL
CONFIDENT ABOUT GOVE COUNTY KANSAS BUT GIVEN RATHER LOW FFG IT HAS
BEEN ADDED TO THE WATCH.

&&

.GLD WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
KS...FLASH FLOOD WATCH FROM 5 PM CDT THIS AFTERNOON THROUGH THURSDAY
     MORNING FOR KSZ003-004-015-016-029.

NE...FLASH FLOOD WATCH FROM 5 PM CDT THIS AFTERNOON THROUGH THURSDAY
     MORNING FOR NEZ080-081.

CO...NONE.
&&

WFO GOODLAND

Hazardous weather outlook, Jun 4, 10:01 AM MDT, 5 hours before

HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GOODLAND KS
1001 AM MDT WED JUN 4 2008

COZ090>092-KSZ001>004-013>016-027>029-041-042-NEZ079>081-051515-
YUMA-KIT CARSON-CHEYENNE CO-CHEYENNE KS-RAWLINS-DECATUR-NORTON-
SHERMAN-THOMAS-SHERIDAN-GRAHAM-WALLACE-LOGAN-GOVE-GREELEY-WICHITA-
DUNDY-HITCHCOCK-RED WILLOW-
1001 AM MDT WED JUN 4 2008 /1101 AM CDT WED JUN 4 2008/

THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR EXTREME SOUTHWEST
NEBRASKA...NORTHWEST KANSAS AND EAST CENTRAL COLORADO.

.DAY ONE...TODAY AND TONIGHT

SEVERE WEATHER...INCLUDING THE POTENTIAL FOR TORNADOES...WILL
OCCUR THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING. LOW PRESSURE WILL STRENGTHEN
OVER SOUTHEAST COLORADO THIS AFTERNOON...AND A WARM FRONT WILL
EXTEND FROM SOUTHEAST COLORADO TO CENTRAL NEBRASKA BY THIS
EVENING. THE AIR MASS OVER THE TRI-STATE AREA WILL BE MOIST AND
UNSTABLE.

THUNDERSTORMS WILL DEVELOP LATE THIS AFTERNOON MAINLY OVER EASTERN
COLORADO. THE STORMS WILL MOVE INTO WESTERN KANSAS AND SOUTHWEST
NEBRASKA LATE THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING. ALL OF THE STORMS HAVE
THE POTENTIAL FOR PRODUCING DAMAGING WINDS AND LARGE HAIL...BUT THE
GREATEST THREAT OF SEVERE WEATHER WILL BE NORTH OF INTERSTATE 70.
THERE IS ALSO A CHANCE FOR TORNADOES...WITH THE GREATEST THREAT
AREA NORTHEAST OF A LINE FROM TRENTON NEBRASKA TO HOXIE KANSAS.

HEAVY RAIN IS ALSO POSSIBLE...AND A FLASH FLOOD WATCH HAS BEEN
ISSUED FOR PARTS OF SOUTHWEST NEBRASKA AND NORTHWEST KANSAS.

.DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...THURSDAY THROUGH TUESDAY

THUNDERSTORMS ARE POSSIBLE AGAIN ACROSS THE TRI-STATE AREA ON
THURSDAY. ALTHOUGH INSTABILITY WILL BE LIMITED...A FEW STORMS MAY
BECOME SEVERE WITH LARGE HAIL AND DAMAGING WINDS THURSDAY
AFTERNOON AND EVENING.

.SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT...

SPOTTER ACTIVATION WILL BE NEEDED.

MENTZER

In the hours before

Special weather statement, Jun 4, 2:00 PM MDT, 1 hour 1 minute before

SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GOODLAND KS
200 PM MDT WED JUN 4 2008

COZ090-042030-
YUMA COUNTY-
200 PM MDT WED JUN 4 2008

...THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN GOODLAND HAS ISSUED A SIGNIFICANT
WEATHER ALERT FOR YUMA COUNTY IN NORTHEAST COLORADO...

AT 158 PM MDT...SATELLITE IMAGERY AND NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED THAT THUNDERSTORMS WERE RAPIDLY DEVELOPING 10
MILES NORTHEAST OF ARICKAREE SCHOOL...OR 11 MILES WEST OF ABARR...AND
MOVING NORTHEAST AT 17 MPH. THIS STORM HAS THE POTENTIAL TO RAPIDLY
BECOME SEVERE AND ANYONE IN WESTERN YUMA COUNTY SHOULD CONTINUE TO
MONITOR FOR POTENTIAL WARNINGS.

JRM

Local storm report, Jun 4, 2:56 PM MDT, 5 minutes before

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GOODLAND KS
256 PM MDT WED JUN 04 2008

..TIME...   ...EVENT...      ...CITY LOCATION...     ...LAT.LON...
..DATE...   ....MAG....      ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
            ..REMARKS..

0253 PM     HAIL             2 SE YUMA               40.10N 102.70W
06/04/2008  E1.00 INCH       YUMA               CO   TRAINED SPOTTER

&&

KJAMES

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

9.0 hours before the tornado, 48 km from the path. June 4, 2008.

Skew-T log-p

Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.

Hodograph

The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.

Mixed-layer CAPE: 266 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -122 J/kg
Surface CAPE: 16 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 675 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 53 kt
0-1 km bulk shear: 15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 91 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 185 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.0
Supercell composite: 1.8
0-3 km lapse rate: 5.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Denver, CO (KDNR), 00:00Z

3.0 hours after it, 48 km from the path. June 5, 2008.

Skew-T log-p

Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.

Hodograph

Mixed-layer CAPE: 709 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -19 J/kg
Surface CAPE: 1874 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 1208 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 44 kt
0-1 km bulk shear: 12 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 66 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 148 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.3
Supercell composite: 5.0
0-3 km lapse rate: 8.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Akron/Washington Co (AKO), 42 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)	Temp (°F)	Dew point (°F)	Wind	Gust (kt)	Pressure (mb)	Weather
00:00 UTC

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The radar

The Goodland radar (KGLD), 119 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:58 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the track Every 2008 tornado in Colorado Every tornado in Colorado since 1950 Warnings in force in Colorado now The forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 4, 2008

45 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Damage
June 4	3:30 AM CDT	EF0	Randolph, IL	0.6	50
June 4	3:48 AM CDT	EF0	Randolph, IL	1.5	50
June 4	3:49 AM CDT	EF0	Randolph, IL	0.7	25
June 4	7:13 AM EDT	EF0	Greene, IN	0.1	50
June 4	7:50 AM EDT	EF0	Hamilton, OH	1.9	50	$40,000
June 4	1:25 PM EDT	EF1	Clarke, VA	0.5	100	$20,000
June 4	2:19 PM EDT	EF0	Fauquier, VA	4.0	150	$15,000
June 4	2:35 PM EDT	EF0	Loudoun, VA	5.4	150	$15,000
June 4	3:18 PM EDT	EF0	Frederick, VA	0.5	100	$8,000
June 4	3:20 PM EDT	EF0	Montgomery, MD	0.3	50	$2,000
June 4	3:40 PM EDT	EF0	Calvert, MD	1.6	75	$400,000
June 4	4:12 PM EDT	EF0	Caroline, MD	2.2	50	$300,000
June 4	2:29 PM MDT	EF0	Washington, CO	0.1	50
June 4	3:04 PM MDT	EF0	Adams, CO	0.1	50
June 4	4:53 PM CDT	EF0	Howard, NE	3.6	25	$50,000
June 4	6:00 PM EDT	EF0	Dearborn, IN	0.7	50	$30,000
June 4	6:20 PM EDT	EF0	Pendleton, KY	0.2	25	$60,000
June 4	4:49 PM MDT	EF1	Chase, NE	0.9	30	$95,000
June 4	6:04 PM CDT	EF1	Mills, IA	4.8	220
June 4	5:08 PM MDT	EF1	Chase, NE	0.1	20	$30,000
June 4	5:13 PM MDT	EF0	Chase, NE	0.1	20	$25,000
June 4	7:15 PM EDT	EF0	Culpeper, VA	4.0	100	$15,000
June 4	7:27 PM EDT	EF1	Stafford, VA	9.6	100	$50,000
June 4	7:35 PM EDT	EF1	Stafford, VA	1.0	100	$20,000
June 4	6:50 PM CDT	EF1	Mills, IA	5.1	440
June 4	5:53 PM MDT	EF0	Chase, NE	0.1	20
June 4	7:04 PM CDT	EF0	Union, IA	0.9	50
June 4	7:10 PM CDT	EF0	Hayes, NE	0.1	20
June 4	7:25 PM CDT	EF1	Seward, NE	5.6	440
June 4	6:26 PM MDT	EF0	Yuma, CO	0.5	25
June 4	7:44 PM CDT	EF1	Butler, NE	3.8	440
June 4	7:45 PM CDT	EF1	Livingston, IL	3.4	200	$40,000
June 4	8:00 PM CDT	EF1	Butler, NE	5.5	220
June 4	8:13 PM CDT	EF0	Adams, IA	2.3	75
June 4	8:18 PM CDT	EF0	Tazewell, IL	1.5	30
June 4	8:24 PM CDT	EF0	Tazewell, IL	6.1	150
June 4	8:24 PM CDT	EF1	Adams, IA	9.5	150	$15,000
June 4	8:37 PM CDT	EF1	Saunders, NE	6.5	880
June 4	8:55 PM CDT	EF1	Saunders, NE	4.9	440
June 4	8:58 PM CDT	EF1	Adams, IA	5.6	150	$25,000
June 4	9:18 PM CDT	EF0	Union, IA	1.1	75	$5,000
June 4	9:37 PM CDT	EF1	Union, IA	3.9	150	$50,000
June 4	9:58 PM CDT	EF1	Union, IA	10.9	100	$5,000
June 4	11:23 PM CDT	EF0	Phelps, NE	0.1	25
June 4	11:28 PM CDT	EF0	Gosper, NE	0.1	25

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.