Windsor, Colo. tornado and my peeps in action
First off, I am very relieved that my former colleagues at the Loveland Reporter-Herald in Colorado are safe. A half-mile-wide wedge tornado bore down on the town of Windsor, Colo. Thursday morning and carved a wide swath of damage. Only one person was killed and it’s a miracle more were not taken. I believe this is a testament to the strength of our early warning systems and to the construction quality of our buildings.
Stormtrack storm chasers (here and here) had been watching the supercell (posts include technical jargon, also with great pics of radar with the hook echo visible), which had a rare northwest track, since it formed. It put on quite a show, gouging a path through Windsor and then headed toward Fort Collins.
Loveland was also under tornado warning for some time, and staff at the Reporter-Herald huddled in the downstairs hallway for about 15-20 minutes. (Guys, I hate to say it, but if that tornado was anything above an EF-3 that hallway isn’t going to cut it.)
—EDIT: Adding info from Jeff Masters’ Wunderblog. Masters says the damage appeared to be at least EF-3. Check out the great pictures and explanations of the hook echo on his site (animation of reflectivity here).—
Based on the damage from aerial shots from the Rocky Mountain News, Windsor has a long road to recovery ahead of them.
Some incredible video from KUSA is posted on the CNN site. Halfway through the video you can see egg-sized hail pelting the reporter, who is on an overpass of US 34 west of Greeley (I think?). Check out the other videos on that page as well. Just watching the video gives me chills and makes me thankful that Loveland didn’t sustain a direct hit from this monster.
Friday, May 23rd, 2008