Tornadoes · United States · Colorado · 2020

Unrated tornado, Burlington, Colorado, June 2, 2020

This Unrated tornado ran 1.1 miles across Kit Carson County on June 2, 2020, touching down at 2:14 PM MDT and reaching 30 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 mph

    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. Unratedthis tornado

    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
Unrated
Date
June 2, 2020
Touchdown
2:14 PM MDT (20:14 UTC)
Lifted
2:17 PM MDT (20:17 UTC)
On the ground
3 minutes
Path length
1.1 miles (1.8 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Kit Carson County
Touchdown point
39.149, -102.183
Lift-off point
39.151, -102.163
Record number
2006021414-01

What the Weather Service recorded

During the afternoon several weak landspout tornadoes were reported from slow moving storms in northern Cheyenne County. No damage was reported from these landspouts.||After the landspouts had ended, a weak front moving east across East Central Colorado caused a brief dust storm to occur south of Burlington near a feedlot.||During the late afternoon another round of thunderstorms developed west into Colorado from Kansas. A gust of 59 MPH was reported from one of these storms in Hale.

Brief landspout reported looking south from the Advantage Ag office just east of Burlington.

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

The warnings

48 minutes of warning. NWS GLD issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:26 UTC, 48 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:15 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
19:26 UTC20:15 UTCTornado WarningGLD
20:26 UTC20:53 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningGLD
22:18 UTC23:58 UTCFlash Flood WarningGLD
22:38 UTC23:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningGLD
23:55 UTC03:00 UTCFlash Flood 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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:45 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

8.2 hours before the tornado, 121 km from the path. June 2, 2020.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Denver, CO at 12:00Z on 2020-06-02Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 34 joules per kilogram, CIN -238, lifted condensation level 3037 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 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 2020-06-02The 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 -40 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 5 knots.1939Sfc1 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
34 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-238 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
3037 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
5 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-40 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
6 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 (KDNR), 00:00Z

3.8 hours after it, 121 km from the path. June 3, 2020.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Denver, CO at 00:00Z on 2020-06-03Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 5 joules per kilogram, CIN -65, lifted condensation level 3271 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 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 2020-06-03The 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 -13 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 17 knots.1939Sfc1 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
5 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-65 J/kg
Surface CAPE
175 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
3271 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
10 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-13 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
21 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
9.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Goodland radar (KGLD), 47 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:14 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
19:55 UTCTORNADO14 N FirstviewCheyenne, COANOTHER LANDSPOUT INDICATED ON VIAERO WEBCAM IN NORTHERN CHEYENNE COUNTY.
20:06 UTCTSTM WND GST 475 S BurlingtonKit Carson, CODELAYED REPORT. ASOS STATION KITR BURLINGTON CO AIRPORT.
20:07 UTCTORNADO10 S PeconicKit Carson, COBRIEF LANDSPOUT REPORTED LOOKING SOUTH FROM THE ADVANTAGE AG OFFICE JUST EAST OF BURLINGTON, COLORADO.
20:20 UTCDUST STORM3 S BurlingtonKit Carson, COZERO VISIBILITY AT A FEED LOT SOUTH OF BURLINGTON, COLORADO.

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2020 tornado in ColoradoEvery tornado in Colorado since 1950Warnings in force in Colorado nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 2, 2020

5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 21:13 PM MDTUnratedCheyenne, CO0.530
June 21:27 PM MDTUnratedCheyenne, CO1.130
June 21:31 PM MDTUnratedCheyenne, CO0.130
June 21:52 PM MDTUnratedCheyenne, CO0.530
June 23:02 PM MDTUnratedWallace, KS0.630

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.