EF2 tornado, Powell, Colorado, May 19, 2024

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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

May 19, 2024

Touchdown

2:45 PM MDT (20:45 UTC)

Lifted

2:56 PM MDT (20:56 UTC)

On the ground

11 minutes

Path length

1.6 miles (2.5 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Logan County

Touchdown point

40.830, -103.020

Lift-off point

40.830, -102.990

Record number

2405191445-01

9 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BOU, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU. The highest wind the damage implies is 118 mph.

• Cement board siding missing over entire section of NW facing wall.
• Half of the roof's ridge vent is missing with at least one-square of shingles gone.
• Pieces of hard plastic window well covering embbeded at least one-inch into stucco of home.
• Given the location of this residence, the thought is they were in the RFD feeding into the tornado to the immediate north.

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

A brief landspout tornado occurred over southern Washington county. The other severe weather accompanied a supercell thunderstorm that tracked southeast across eastern Logan County which produced 2 tornadoes and large hail.

Tornado touched down just west of CR 59, along CR 56, moving towards the east-southeast. The tornado impacted one residence after initial touchdown uprooting and snapping several trees on the west side of the property. A few pieces of hard blue plastic window well covering was found embedded into the west facing stucco-ed wall of the home. The tornado then proceeded to impact another residence about one-quarter mile east-southeast where it removed the west facing awning, anchored to the primary houses' roof structure, the northwest facing cement board house siding, and approximately one square of asphalt roofing shingles. The most significant impact was to three telephone poles on CR 59, about one-tenth of a mile south of the CR 56, that were snapped at their bases, resulting in EF-2 damage. The tornado remained on the ground for a few more minutes moving primarily towards the east where it overturned a few center pivot and damaging a working farm's outbuilding. The tornado then lifted over open fields. It was reported, by a trained spotter, that the tornado briefly touched down once more just east of the Caliche School before dissipating. No additional damage was reported.

Spotter reported another brief touchdown east of Caliche School.

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

0 minutes of warning. NWS BOU issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:45 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:04 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 18:59 UTC and running to 23:50 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. 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 Cheyenne radar (KCYS), 155 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:45 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 2024 tornado in ColoradoEvery tornado in Colorado since 1950Warnings in force in Colorado nowThe forecast where you are

31 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.