Tornado Hits Northern Colorado, Wyoming

Little too close to home (I attended college for 4 years at the University of Northern Colorado, with Jux, in Greeley, Colorado).

Tornado hit at 11:30am in Platteville, Colorado (where Jux has family). Moved and hit Gilcrest, Colorado. Passed the western side of Greeley (where Jux, two other board members live), killing one man camping at Missile Silo Park (where I have gone camping and spent a lot of time back in the day). The tornado then hit the town of Windsor (one board member that I know of) and caused major damage to the city. It then moved north clipping the town of Wellington and causing very minimal damage to Fort Collins, Colorado (where I lived for a year).

The city of Windsor, Colorado has been declared as a state of emergency. The city is without gas and electricity. FEMA is figuring out if they can provide aid.

Reports indicate that the tornado was what is referred to as a "wedge" tornado, where as some torandoes are long and rope-shaped, this one was a wedge out of the clouds and massive in size. And I mean massive. Estimates at 1/2 mile to a full mile in diameter. Early reports are stating this tornado that traveled close to 40 miles before moving in to Wyoming and causing damage to Laramie, could be as huge as an F4 tornado (F5 = hand of God), and being no smaller than an F3 tornado.

Was the frontpage of CNN for a good part of the morning.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/22/col...deo/index.html

And for a picture slideshow of the torando and the damage...

http://www.9news.com/9slideshows/Wel...ado%205-22-08/

The thing that people don't understand is that tornadoes, while not unheard of in northern Colorado, are very rare. They usually spawn further east, towards Nebraska and Kansas. This one formed about 50 miles north of Denver (still in the Platte Valley, even rarer) and moved north-west towards the mountains.

Creepy. Thank whatever powers that be that, as far as we know, everyone that we may know/associate with here is safe and okay, and prayers to the families displaced and to the poor family grieving over the loss of their loved one.

I'm at target and movie toys are lame

A tornado dropped a tree down the middle of my house when I was 12. This was back in 1990 and I lived in Alabama.

If the tree had landed an inch or 2 to the right, it would have brought my bedroom wall down on my head

Yeah I was there for that one. I was living right outside of Huntsville. Damaged the house up really bad.

*Looks at radar*

Shit, that stuff is heading my way.

I was in Tuscaloosa. Feb 10th 1990. 2am Saturday. Its funny how a date can be burned into your memory like that.

My dad was on the front page of the Tuscaloosa News after it. The tree fell right on a chair that he had been sitting in a few minutes before. Said he heard a freight train, and since he had heard that a tornado sounded like that, he started running to wake us up. As soon as he got into the hallway, the living room ceiling caved in. The tree cut us off from the exits of the house, we ended up climbing out of my sister's bedroom window. My shoes also happened to be in the living room that night, so all I had was an old pair of slippers, walking in the mud.

Glad you all made it out safe.

We had a rash of straight line winds and tornadoes hit our area a few weeks back. One tornado dropped a little over two miles from my house and only destroyed an Arby's and a ripped off siding from a church.

This is what the Arby's looks like:






It's definitely a wake up call when something like this happens so close to home.

Holy crap!

Tornadoes are something to definitely fear.

Heck, even in Rhode Island we sometimes get tornado warnings and multiple cyclone/funnel (those on-water tornado things) warnings off the coast. There are even times when you can see them trying to form in the clouds.

Just a few weeks ago, after walking home from my final exam (my house is literally down the street from the college), I could visually see, clear as day, a small whirlwind of sand spinning around in the campus's teacher parking lot. It lasted for a good five minutes.
It was weak though, as I actually walked right into the center of it, a cylinder shaped wall of sand surrounding me (Awesome stuff). Then, it sped off faster than I could follow it, over a busy campus road and across the street onto the nearby golf course, taking up leaves into it's mass. You could see it so clearly. It then slowed into a sand trap and picked up even more sand. I could still see it moving farther down the golf course, until it hit the horizon and vanished out of my sight. Awesome stuff to behold of.

Awesome sights of nature's power aside,

My hopes and prayers are with everyone effected by this naturally occurring tragedy. May whichever God you worship be with you always.

I keep misreading this thread as "Toronto Hits Northern Calorado, Wyoming". I didn't think the GTA had expanded that far... yet.

Originally Posted by Razerwire You are an epicurean disaster.

wow...
I have withnessed a Tornado or two out here (NYC area) but most were atmost 4 years apart between them.

in 93 we had one that made landfall and fell apart as soon as it hit but dumped a ton of flooding rain.

In 97 A tornado was spotted from brooklyn heading towards Staten Island While they were filming the american version of Godzilla it was even used in the movie.

april of 01 A series of clouds began a rotational spin near the bayonne bridge and began to desend downwards tearing up a tree before it disinagrated.

in June of 06 In the same area there was a Rotational spin in the clouds over the job I worked at but then it became a thunderstorm and dumped 5 inches of rain with in an hour.

while it's not as scary as the actual Tornado touching down and causing a massive path of distruction, the near misses are quite scary as well.

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