8/24/08 DISC: CO

[Dann Cianca]

So, the Democratic National Circus is in town ... and I had to work at the flood center today. Normally, I go out on the roof to observe. Today (and for the rest of the week), however, we can't go outside since our office is downtown.

On any normal day, this wouldn't be a big deal. But on a day where the convergence zone heats up and there are landspouts all over the freakin' place, this gets a little ... annoying. Especially when all of my friends are calling me saying, "can you see the tornado??" No, I can't.

Anyway, enough of my sob story. We had a beautiful boundary clash today that spun up some very nice and photogenic landspouts. I saved a velocity scan from here at work. The images shows one of THREE landspouts ... this one, which had the strongest couplet was not the one being covered by news stations. I would have loved to have been on this bad boy ...

CLICK ME FOR VELOCITY!

Video and pictures here: KMGH

 

[Verne Carlson]

I too missed the action southeast of Denver! But ironically we were to be at the freind's house for a BBQ when these pics of one of the landspouts was taken in their neighborhood in Parker, CO. Work commitments kept me home!

Some pics here!:
http://stormchaserco.blogspot.com/2008/08/tornado-warned-cells.html

Mods: this is not a report as I wasn't chasing.

 

[John Farley]

Video from CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/weather/2008/08/24/vo.co.tornado.kusa

 

[Dann Cianca]

One of the gentlemen I work for sent me some images of the Lemon Gulch landspout ... he gave me permission to post them ... Here on my blog.

 

[Tony Laubach]

This event caps off a very active week for Colorado as tornadoes were reported on the 17th, the 20th (another local-live news event), 23rd, and today. Of course, back on 8-13, Dann Cianca and Michael Carlson nabbed a tornado south of Limon.

Its amazing how these events have unfolded on rather benign setup days. Boundaries played a HUGE part in all of these days and helped spawn most of these tornadoes. Today, a large boundary set up in the area and created the conditions for the outbreak.

If you look at the local AFDs and even SPC outlooks, you'll see little if any mention of a tornado threat in any of these forecasts. By the time the signs show up, you're within 30 minutes of showtime, and its often tough to predict exactly where these storms will produce. Today, the radar showed the boundary shortly before the storms went up, and within 30 minutes, tornadoes were being reported.

The Saturday tornadoes formed in the mountains, and pictures from various news sites show a landspout up in the high country (8000+ feel ASL).

Chasing these storms is a right-place-at-the-right-time type of deal because of how difficult these events are to forecast. Hence the lack of reports from Colorado chasers as most of us barely had a chance to get off the couch to get down to see these. In my case, I had just wrapped up my fantasy football drafts and it wasn't too long after that when the tornadoes began.

Another crazy day here in Colorado, and another sign that reminds us that there is a ton of luck in terms of nabbing tornadoes like these. What a beauty they were, and best of all, how little damage they did!

 

[Jason Harris]

How wide and strong was that landspout filmed there and shown on CNN? What was the damage?

 

[Tony Laubach]

How wide and strong was that landspout filmed there and shown on CNN? What was the damage?

From what I gather, only a few trees took some damage, and most of those simply limb/branch type of stuff. Some of the video showed some pretty intense circulation at the ground, but it was at a time where the tornado was in pretty open terrain with little to hit. Fortunately, these tornadoes didn't hit much if anything, which is unfortunate to rate them beyond its visual presentation.

Maybe a 100-200 yards at widest point... again, with no real damage to go by, it's probably very tough to say for sure.