EF2 tornado, Messex to Akron Arpt, Colorado, May 23, 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 23, 2025

Touchdown

5:37 PM MDT (23:37 UTC)

Lifted

5:59 PM MDT (23:59 UTC)

On the ground

22 minutes

Path length

8.4 miles (13.5 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Washington County

Touchdown point

40.380, -103.270

Lift-off point

40.260, -103.250

Record number

2505231737-01

22 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BOU, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 118 mph.

• Evidence of disease on tree but snapped 7 feet up
• First of 5 poles from the east
• Already replaced. Debris from residence blown into the area
• Snapped at 4 ft up, pole lifted 75 feet downwind.

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

A strong supercell thunderstorm tracked south-southeast across far northeast Weld, southwest Logan and northwest Washington Counties. The storms produced large hail, up to 3 inches in diameter and also three tornadoes across Logan and Washington Counties during the afternoon hours of May 23rd, including one EF-2 and one EF-1. Most of the observed damage was snapped power poles and trees. One single family residence sustained EF-1 damage, but there were no injuries reported. This supercell also produced a swath of golf ball to baseball sized hail, with one ICECHIP report of over 3 inch diameter hail in northern Washington county.

Well documented tornado that moved south parallel to CO-63, remaining generally in open areas 2-3 miles west of CO-63. We obtained the width (400 yds) of the tornado based on power poles snapped along County Road 50. One single family residence was struck with minor damage to the house, and significant damage to all outbuildings and trees on the property, consistent with EF-1 damage. Debris from the property was carried approximately one mile to the south-southwest. Further south of the damaged property, power poles were snapped and thrown a considerable distance (25 yds), consistent with EF-2 intensity. The power poles were on the west side of AA, just north of County Road 48. Video evidence and the results of the storm survey, suggest that the tornado dissipated just before 6 PM MDT.

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

26 minutes of warning. NWS BOU issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:11 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:45 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 21:00 UTC and running to 02:23 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 19:55 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.

Akron/Washington Co (AKO), 16 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Denver radar (KFTG), 124 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:37 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

2 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.