EF2 tornado, Elizabeth to Byers, Colorado, May 18, 2025

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 18, 2025

Touchdown

1:07 PM MDT (19:07 UTC)

Lifted

1:12 PM MDT (19:12 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

0.9 miles (1.5 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Arapahoe and Elbert counties

Touchdown point

39.558, -104.623

Lift-off point

39.569, -104.612

Record number

2505181307-01

13 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 97 mph.

• Detached two car-garage completely destroyed.
• Numerous solar panels destroyed and missing
• Detached garage completely destroyed with several squares of missing shingles.
• Detached garage destroyed. Garages are rated at 80 MPH based on homeowner's information

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

Four tornadoes occurred just to the south and east of metro Denver in the early afternoon of Sunday, May 18th.||The first tornado that produced damage in northwest Elbert County was an uncharacteristically strong landspout, as well as the last tornado that occurred northeast of Bennett. The other two tornadoes were more strongly associated with a parent thunderstorm, known as a supercell.||The first is for the initial tornado, rated EF2, in and near the Elkhorn neighborhood of extreme northwest Elbert County, Colorado. The second is an EF1 that occurred south|of Manila Village. The third and fourth tornadoes were both ranked EF2. These tornadoes tracked just to the west and north of Bennett, Colorado. They were two separate tornadoes, and were both on the ground at the same time between 140 pm and 146 pm.

Quick moving and rain wrapped tornado swept through Elk Horn Ranch in extreme northern Elbert County before moving into Arapahoe County and lifting. Numerous homes were damaged.

Tornado touched down off of Manila Road in the Arapahoe County side of Bennet, CO and quickly moved north-northeast before lifting. Several properties were damaged.

Larger tornado touched down just south of I-70, captured as a dusty cone tornado on a CDOT web camera, before entering into Bennett in Adams County Colorado where it produced EF2 damage to numerous properties. The tornado made a jog to the east and then lifted just north of 38th Ave.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 17:22 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.

Buckley Angb/Denver (BKF), 19 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Denver radar (KFTG), 26 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:08 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 2025 tornado in ColoradoEvery tornado in Colorado since 1950Warnings in force in Colorado nowThe forecast where you are

42 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.