DENVER — The National Weather Service (NWS) out of Boulder has released the EF Scale ratings for the four tornadoes that tore across Colorado's eastern plains on Sunday afternoon.
Denver7 Anchor Jessica Porter sat down with Paul Schlatter, acting chief program officer of the NWS Central Region, on Tuesday to learn more about the destructive storms.
"We found four separate tornadoes extending from the extreme northwest corner of Elbert County into Arapahoe County and then extending into Adams County near Bennett," he explained. "Three of those four tornadoes are going to be rated EF2, and the other tornado will be EF1."
Earlier in the day, the NWS said one tornado in the Bennett area and another in the Elkhorn Ranch neighborhood area in northwest Elbert County were both EF2s. Denver7 is working to learn the location of the third EF2 and the single EF1 from Sunday.
On Sunday evening, the NWS published preliminary data about these four tornadoes:
- 1:08 p.m.-1:17 p.m.: A tornado touched down about 2.5 miles southeast of the Aurora Reservoir in the area of the Elkhorn Ranch neighborhood
- 1:28 p.m.-1:34 p.m.: A tornado was on the ground near the intersection of Airline Road and S. Lookout Hill Street.
- 1:37 p.m. (unknown end time): A tornado touched the ground near Schumaker Road and Highway 36
- 1:43 p.m.-1:58 p.m.: A tornado was seen about 2.5 miles northeast of Bennett
The exact paths or widths of these tornadoes is not yet available.
Luckily, nobody was seriously injured or killed in these storms. Schlatter said since 1950, only three tornadoes in the state have ended with fatalities.
In an EF2 tornado, forecasters expect to see "considerable damage," with roofs torn off, homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees uprooted or broken and tossed cars. In about 95% of cases in Colorado, tornadoes are rated as EF0 or EF1, Schlatter said.
The NWS detailed the EF rating scale in a social media post, as shared below.
Schlatter explained how the NWS determines the rating of tornadoes.
"We look at as many things as we can possibly look at when we're out in the field," he said. "We look at how strong the house was built, how well it was anchored, everything. How well the roof was anchored, what type of building it was, what type of tree it was. I mean, we look at all kinds of indicators that would help us determine what type of wind speed is responsible for that damage. And then we log each point very meticulously, and whichever the highest damage indicator we have, that's what we rate the tornado — based on the highest point value that we see."
Dozens of homes were impacted across Adams, Arapahoe and Elbert counties on Sunday. Officials told Denver7 at least 19 were damaged or destroyed near Elizabeth and at least 17 were in similar shape around Bennett.
Schlatter noted the "significant damage" to "well-built, very nice" houses in northeast Elbert County, around the Elkhorn Ranch neighborhood.
"That was pretty clearly EF2 damage," he said. "We also saw in one of the other tornadoes near Bennett power poles snapped off at the base, which is another good indicator just how strong the tornadoes were."
Tornado warnings were initially in place for some Denver metro counties and parts of the eastern plains starting around 2 p.m. Sunday. They continued for a couple hours, with some then expiring and others being downgraded to a tornado watch into the early evening hours.
Elbert County Commissioner Byron McDaniel, who was one of the first to drive into the Elkhorn Ranch neighborhood after the storm had passed, signed an emergency declaration for the county on Monday to help with the rebuilding.
"This is not something that we normally see in Elbert County," he told us.
In fact, it's not overly common to have a handful of tornadoes at the same time anywhere in Colorado, Schlatter said.
"We are nearing the peak tornado season in eastern Colorado, which typically peaks right around the first and second weeks in June," he continued. "So, we're coming up on that right now. In terms of EF2 tornadoes, we get one to two of those per year across eastern Colorado, but it is reasonably rare to have three in close proximity on the same day, like we had on Sunday."
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He said he is relieved and "fascinated" that nobody was hurt, considering how strong the tornadoes were.
"Great news that people knew what to do when they saw the tornado and got the warnings," he told Denver7.
However, in the aftermath, many people reached out to Denver7 asking why they had not received any alerts or warnings about the storm. We brought those questions to officials.
Watch our Monday report on the lack of alerts amid Sunday's storms in the video below.
Juliet Madsen, interim director of emergency management for Elbert County, confirmed no CodeRED or reverse 911 alerts were sent because they were not expecting a tornado — just a bad storm or two. In a clarifying comment Tuesday, the county said no alerts were pushed out by the county because the NWS did not issue any alerts to the impacted area. Elbert County does not have a siren or other audible alarm.
The Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office said a Code Red Alert was sent to residents.
With cuts to staffing at NWS offices across the country, we asked if this played a role in Sunday's alerts. Bernie Meier, meteorologist in the Boulder office, told us that they were prepared for the storm and "saw the event coming and we had enough people in here staffed up."
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