Tornadoes · United States · Colorado · 2015

EF0 tornado, Kit Carson, Colorado, April 2, 2015

This EF0 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Cheyenne County on April 2, 2015, touching down at 5:50 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.

  1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. EF186 to 110 mph

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. EF4166 to 200 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. 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.

  7. 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
April 2, 2015
Touchdown
5:50 PM MDT (23:50 UTC)
Lifted
5:52 PM MDT (23:52 UTC)
On the ground
2 minutes
Path length
1.0 miles (1.6 km)
Path width
25 yards (23 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Cheyenne County
Touchdown point
38.824, -102.808
Lift-off point
38.824, -102.808
Record number
1504021750-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Thunderstorms developed during the late afternoon over Cheyenne County and moved east into Kansas. A brief tornado was reported near the town of Kit Carson along with 1.00 hail. As the storm moved into eastern Cheyenne County, very strong winds developed which produced a dust storm and visibility to near zero in many locations.

The tornado was viewed from five miles east of Highway 59. Radar estimated position of the tornado is four miles north-northwest of the town of Kit Carson. No damage was reported.

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)ExpiredProductOffice
23:15 UTC00:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningGLD
23:52 UTC00:15 UTCTornado WarningGLD
00:16 UTC00:45 UTCTornado WarningGLD
01:03 UTC01:20 UTCTornado WarningGLD

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 (KDEN), 12:00Z

11.8 hours before the tornado, 122 km from the path. April 2, 2015.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Denver, CO at 12:00Z on 2015-04-02Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -98785, lifted condensation level 1531 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
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.
HodographHodograph, Denver, CO at 12:00Z on 2015-04-02The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 50 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 70 knots.1939587897117136Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-98785 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1531 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
70 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
50 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
317 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Denver, CO (KDEN), 00:00Z

0.2 hours after it, 122 km from the path. April 3, 2015.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Denver, CO at 00:00Z on 2015-04-03Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -94111, lifted condensation level 628 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
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.
HodographHodograph, Denver, CO at 00:00Z on 2015-04-03The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity -60 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 63 knots.1939587897117Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-94111 J/kg
Surface CAPE
14 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
628 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
63 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-60 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
194 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Goodland radar (KGLD), 113 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:49 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)ReportWhereCountyRemark
23:43 UTCHAIL 0.256 N Wild HorseCheyenne, CO
23:43 UTCHAIL 0.7512 Ne Kit CarsonCheyenne, CONEAR THE CROSSROAD OF HWY 28 AND ROAD V. WINDS ARE ESTIMATED TO BE 45 MPH BLOWING DUST FROM THE NE TO THE SW.
23:50 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD5 N Kit CarsonCheyenne, COFUNNEL CLOUD REPORTED...WORKING TO CONFIRM IF TORNADO HAS TOUCHED DOWN OR NOT
00:00 UTCHAIL 14 N Kit CarsonCheyenne, CO
00:14 UTCHAIL 1Kit CarsonCheyenne, COOCCURRING IN THE TOWN OF KIT CARSON
00:30 UTCHAIL 0.252 N Cheyenne WellsCheyenne, COESTIMATED WINDS ARE 40 MPH WITH BLOWING DUST.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2015 tornado in ColoradoEvery tornado in Colorado since 1950Warnings in force in Colorado nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of April 2, 2015

12 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 27:24 PM CDTEF0Labette, KS0.050
April 27:40 PM CDTEF0Labette, KS0.975
April 27:58 PM CDTEF0Cherokee, KS2.5100
April 28:10 PM CDTEF0Labette, KS0.050$5,000
April 29:31 PM EDTEF0Clark, OH0.1120$1,000
April 28:33 PM CDTEF0Barton, MO2.6100$5,000
April 29:09 PM CDTEF0Jasper, MO0.175$10,000
April 29:59 PM CDTEF1Craig, OK12.38001$275,000
April 211:25 PM CDTEF1McDonald, MO12.4100$20,000
April 212:26 AM CDTEF1Douglas, MO0.9100$15,000
April 212:40 AM CDTEF1Boone, AR6.9300$500,000
April 212:52 AM CDTEF2Howell, MO7.6440$600,000

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.