EF0 tornado, Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, September 17, 2016

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.

Rating

EF0

Date

September 17, 2016

Touchdown

3:43 PM MDT (21:43 UTC)

Lifted

4:00 PM MDT (22:00 UTC)

On the ground

17 minutes

Path length

1.9 miles (3.1 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Cheyenne County

Touchdown point

38.869, -102.383

Lift-off point

38.870, -102.347

Record number

1609171543-02

8 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS GLD, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

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

During the afternoon a line of strong to severe thunderstorms moved through East Central Colorado. Two landspout tornadoes occurred in the Cheyenne Wells vicinity. One of them caused damage to structures on the west side of town near Highway 40 while the other remained north of town a couple miles. This line of storms also produced dime to nickel size hail, with the largest hail falling near Yuma.

A landspout tornado developed west of Cheyenne Wells between CR 42 and CR 43 just north of Highway 40, slowly moving east. Minor damage was sustained to most houses from South 1st Street to South 2nd Street between West 14th and West 10th. Damage included shingles blown off roofs, a garage door blown inward, a piece of tin ripped off a metal shed, windows broken, and sections of privacy fence blown down. The most notable damage was a six car garage leveled due to the walls collapsing and a mature pine tree being uprooted. The tornado ended at West 10th Street.

A second landspout was seen north of Cheyenne Wells. Based on photos and the subtle rotation couplet on radar, the tornado remained roughly three miles north of town between CR T and CR V, crossing CR 43 first then Highway 385 near the CR U/Highway 385 intersection before dissipating east of the highway. No damage was reported with this tornado.

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

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.

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 Slight 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 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 Goodland radar (KGLD), 80 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:45 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

6 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.