Tornadoes · United States · Colorado · 2025
EF1 tornado, Divide, Colorado, July 30, 2025
This EF1 tornado ran 0.8 miles across Teller County on July 30, 2025, touching down at 1:55 PM MDT and reaching 75 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 mphthis tornado
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- EF1
- Date
- July 30, 2025
- Touchdown
- 1:55 PM MDT (19:55 UTC)
- Lifted
- 2:01 PM MDT (20:01 UTC)
- On the ground
- 6 minutes
- Path length
- 0.8 miles (1.3 km)
- Path width
- 75 yards (69 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Teller County
- Touchdown point
- 39.022, -105.149
- Lift-off point
- 39.015, -105.139
- Record number
- 2507301355-01
The damage survey
40 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PUB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.
- This is just a general photo of the RFD blow down. Notice the uniformity of how the trees were blown down. Following photos indicate trees blown down in the opposite direction.
- Mangeled trees all the way to the following ridge. This area is inaccessible on foot.
- Looking towards the ridge where the tornado ended. Trees are completely mangled and it is inaccessible by foot.
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
Broad southwesterly flow was in place over the area, which allowed for high terrain thunderstorms to develop. With adequate shear and instability in place, a supercell tornado developed across Teller County, with a landspout tornado within the Wet Mountain Valley in Custer County.
A damage assessment was performed for an EF1 tornado that formed at 1:55PM MDT on July 30th, 2025 6 miles WNW of Woodland Park, Colorado. The path length was .8 miles oriented from northwest to southwest and had a maximum width of 75 yards. There was extensive tree damage with the primary damage indicator being widespread uprooted softwood trees and an occasional snapped softwood tree.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19:00 UTC | 03:09 UTC | Flood Watch | PUB |
| 19:54 UTC | 20:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | PUB |
| 21:04 UTC | 22:58 UTC | Flash Flood 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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:30 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.
Grand Junction, CO (KGJT), 00:00Z
4.1 hours after it, 290 km from the path. July 31, 2025.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -354 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 140 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 3481 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 30 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 15 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -13 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 10 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 8.4 K/km
The surface observations
Air Force Academy (AFF), 29 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17:55 UTC | 73.4 | 50.7 | 150° 8 kt | 1029.8 | ||
| 18:10 UTC | 75.2 | 51.8 | 170° 10 kt | 1029.8 | ||
| 18:25 UTC | 73.4 | 51.8 | 170° 9 kt | 1029.5 | ||
| 18:40 UTC | 73.4 | 51.8 | 160° 10 kt | 1029.1 | ||
| 18:55 UTC | 75 | 52 | 150° 10 kt | 1029.1 | ||
| 19:10 UTC | 75.2 | 51.8 | 160° 6 kt | 18 | 1029.1 | |
| 19:55 UTC | 75 | 52 | 140° 12 kt | 1028.4 | ||
| 19:58 UTC | 75.2 | 51.8 | 150° 8 kt | 1028.4 | VCTS | |
| 20:22 UTC | 73.4 | 51.8 | 170° 10 kt | 1028.8 | VCTS | |
| 20:36 UTC | 73.4 | 51.8 | 150° 5 kt | 1029.5 | -TSRA | |
| 20:50 UTC | 69.8 | 51.8 | 300° 17 kt | 27 | 1030.8 | -TSRA SQ |
| 20:55 UTC | 64.4 | 48.7 | 310° 10 kt | 27 | 1030.8 | -TSRA SQ |
| 21:12 UTC | 57.2 | 50 | 350° 18 kt | 23 | 1030.8 | TSRAGR |
| 21:21 UTC | 55.4 | 50 | 340° 15 kt | 1031.2 | +TSRA | |
| 21:34 UTC | 55.4 | 50 | 340° 13 kt | 1031.2 | -TSRA BR |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Denver radar (KFTG), 100 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:55 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19:55 UTC | TORNADO | 6 Wnw Woodland Park | Teller, CO | A damage assessment was performed for an EF1 tornado that formed at 1:55PM MDT on July 30th, 2025 6 miles WNW of Woodland Park, Colorado. The path length was .8 miles oriented from northwest to southwest and had a maximu |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2025 tornado in ColoradoEvery tornado in Colorado since 1950Warnings in force in Colorado nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of July 30, 2025
2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.