EF1 tornado, Akron to Platner, Colorado, May 24, 2016

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   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.

Rating

EF1

Date

May 24, 2016

Touchdown

6:47 PM MDT (00:47 UTC)

Lifted

6:50 PM MDT (00:50 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.9 miles (1.4 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Washington County

Touchdown point

40.165, -103.047

Lift-off point

40.155, -103.037

Record number

1605241847-01

6 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BOU, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 112 mph.

• pole barn and leanto lifted and destroyed. damage spread for 1 mile se to highway 34
• debris field strewn 1 mile southeast
• debris field. grass laid flat
• debris field. grass laid down slightly

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A long-lived supercell thunderstorm produced widespread wind and hail damage, and several tornadoes as it tracked east/northeast across eastern Colorado. The first tornado was reported in northeastern Adams County. Then two more brief tornado touchdowns occurred as the storm moved east to near Akron. No damage was reported from the first three tornadoes. A stronger EF-1 tornado (86-110 mph winds) developed as the storm tracked east to near Platner. Significant damage occurred to a pole shed, where the tornado lifted the entire shed and destroyed it. Debris from this shed traveled around 1 mile to the southeast where the tornado lifted. Only minor structural damage occurred elsewhere on the farm northeast of Platner. Two families in a single-family home, totaling three adults and four children, were displaced by the damage. The Red Cross provided temporary lodging, food and clothing. ||The supercell formed over south Denver and tracked east/northeast across northeast Adams, southern Morgan and northern Washington Counties; the storm continued to produce severe weather as into moved into Yuma County. The length of the path through Northeast Colorado was approximately 121 miles from southeast Denver to the Yuma County line. The storm produced hail up to 1.5 inches in diameter in southeast Denver. As it moved across northeast Adams County, several power poles were sheared off at the base by straight-line winds, southwest of Leader. Across Morgan County, hail up to 1.5 inches in diameter was observed. The damage path became more extensive as the storm tracked across northern Washington County. Wind driven hail up to 1.75 inches was reported with extensive damage from around Akron east to the Yuma County line. Extensive hail damage included broken windows to cars and homes. Several power poles were snapped near Otis. In all, up to 10 structures were damaged or destroyed from near Platner to the Yuma County line. While some of the damage was tornadic, most of the damage was caused by straight-line winds. In addition, a severe thunderstorm produced large hail in Jefferson County.

A tornado touched down briefly but did no damage.

A small but intense tornado touched down and caused significant damage to a pole shed. The tornado lifted the entire shed and destroyed it. Debris from this shed traveled around 1 mile to the southeast from where the tornado first struck it. Only minor structural damage occurred elsewhere on the farm.

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

21 minutes of warning. NWS BOU issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:26 UTC, 21 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:45 UTC and running to 02:00 UTC.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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 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.

The Denver radar (KFTG), 135 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:45 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

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

The live radar over the trackEvery 2016 tornado in ColoradoEvery tornado in Colorado since 1950Warnings in force in Colorado nowThe forecast where you are

43 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.