Unrated tornado, Carlton to Arapahoe, Colorado, May 11, 2023

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.

Rating

Unrated

Date

May 11, 2023

Touchdown

4:45 PM MDT (22:45 UTC)

Lifted

4:52 PM MDT (22:52 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

1.1 miles (1.9 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Cheyenne County

Touchdown point

38.830, -102.130

Lift-off point

38.840, -102.140

Record number

2305111645-02

63 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS GLD, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• Window glass broken and boarded up. Damage to door created cracks in drywall and ceiling on either side of the hallway. Broken glass could have been caused by roof debris found in the courtyard.
• Cracks in drywall associated with broken glass door. Door was possibly broken by debris.
• New Crack in second floor office building at southeastern portion of the building.
• Office in southeastern part of building second floor (new crack).

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

A high impact storm system moved across East Central Colorado. The storm system produced an environment that was favorable for any of the developing thunderstorms to produce a tornado, which led to several tornadoes occurring on this day. The strongest tornado of the day was an EF 1 that formed in Cheyenne County Kansas, caused damage, and carried that damage into Yum County.||The largest hail reported was dime size at Cheyenne Wells. The strongest wind gust was 65 MPH near Kirk.

Tornado remained over open fields in eastern Cheyenne County, and just south of US-40. Video captured by storm chaser.

Another tornado reported although there was no picture or video evidence submitted to us (focus was on the first tornado south of US-40). Radar was used to estimate path length and start/end times.

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

4 minutes of warning. NWS GLD issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:41 UTC, 4 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:24 UTC and running to 01:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:53 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), 70 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:44 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 2023 tornado in ColoradoEvery tornado in Colorado since 1950Warnings in force in Colorado nowThe forecast where you are

32 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.