Tornadoes · United States · Colorado · 2021

Unrated tornado, Ordway, Colorado, May 16, 2021

Name: Unrated tornado, Ordway, Colorado, May 16, 2021
Start: 2021-05-16T22:15:00.000Z
End: 2021-05-16T22:19:00.000Z
Location: Ordway, Colorado

This Unrated tornado ran 2.6 miles across Crowley County on May 16, 2021, touching down at 4:15 PM MDT and reaching 20 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 mph
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.
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: May 16, 2021
Touchdown: 4:15 PM MDT (22:15 UTC)
Lifted: 4:19 PM MDT (22:19 UTC)
On the ground: 4 minutes
Path length: 2.6 miles (4.2 km)
Path width: 20 yards (18 m)
Deaths: 0
Injuries: 0
County: Crowley County
Touchdown point: 38.480, -103.870
Lift-off point: 38.484, -103.822
Record number: 2105161615-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A favorable setup for strong to severe storms occurred on this day across the plains, mainly along and just to the north of the Highway 50 corridor. Within this corridor, large hail up to around two inches was the main threat. Flash flooding and even a weak and brief tornado also occurred.

The tornado was on the ground for 4 minutes.

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

The warnings

2 minutes of warning. NWS PUB issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:13 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:45 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 20:46 UTC and running to 02:41 UTC.

Issued (UTC)	Expired	Product	Office
20:46 UTC	02:41 UTC	Severe Thunderstorm Watch	PUB
22:13 UTC	22:45 UTC	Tornado Warning	PUB
22:43 UTC	23:45 UTC	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	PUB
22:59 UTC	23:45 UTC	Tornado Warning	PUB
23:42 UTC	00:45 UTC	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	PUB
00:20 UTC	01:30 UTC	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	PUB

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:51 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

10.3 hours before the tornado, 163 km from the path. May 16, 2021.

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: 215 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -294 J/kg
Surface CAPE: 0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 861 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 22 kt
0-1 km bulk shear: 11 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 35 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: -44 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.0
Supercell composite: 0.0
0-3 km lapse rate: 4.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Denver, CO (KDNR), 00:00Z

1.7 hours after it, 163 km from the path. May 17, 2021.

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: 143 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -4 J/kg
Surface CAPE: 353 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 685 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 17 kt
0-1 km bulk shear: 7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 23 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: -15 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.0
Supercell composite: 0.0
0-3 km lapse rate: 6.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Pueblo radar (KPUX), 29 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:14 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)	Report	Where	County	Remark
22:15 UTC	TORNADO	19 Nnw Ordway	Crowley, CO	CORRECTS PREVIOUS TORNADO REPORT FROM 19 NNW ORDWAY. LIFTED AT 419 PM.
22:15 UTC	TORNADO	19 Nnw Ordway	Crowley, CO	ON THE GROUND FOR 4 MINUTES.
22:31 UTC	HAIL 1.75	5 W Karval	Lincoln, CO	DELAYED REPORT. COCORAHS STATION CO-LN-34 KARVAL 4.8 W. OBSERVER NOTED DENTED CARS AND DAMAGED SHINGLES. TIME ESTIMATED BY RADAR.
22:36 UTC	HAIL 1.25	4 W Karval	Lincoln, CO	HAIL COVERING THE GROUND.
22:40 UTC	HAIL 1.25	5 Wsw Karval	Lincoln, CO	MEASURED AFTER HAIL STOPPED. TIME ESTIMATED BY RADAR.
22:46 UTC	HAIL 1.25	5 Ene Blende	Pueblo, CO

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

This ground now

The live radar over the track Every 2021 tornado in Colorado Every tornado in Colorado since 1950 Warnings in force in Colorado now The forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 16, 2021

8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Damage
May 16	11:14 AM CDT	EF0	Bell, TX	1.9	50	$50,000
May 16	1:42 PM CDT	Unrated	Ellis, TX	2.3	50
May 16	2:00 PM CDT	EF0	Dallas, TX	0.3	30	$2,000
May 16	2:08 PM CDT	Unrated	Ellis, TX	0.9	50
May 16	2:10 PM CDT	EF1	Dallas, TX	0.6	90	$50,000
May 16	3:14 PM CDT	Unrated	Ellis, TX	0.6	50
May 16	7:40 PM CDT	Unrated	Lamb, TX	1.0	50
May 16	10:46 PM CDT	EF0	Haskell, TX	0.1	130	$100,000

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.