DENVER – Some pretty incredible tornado photos circulated across #cowx on social media as multiple severe weather alerts went out for Colorado’s northeastern counties on Friday afternoon and evening.
As the plains continued to see scattered showers Saturday morning, the severe weather threat moves closer to the Denver metro and Front Range area where large hail is possible and an isolated tornado is not out of the question.
As of Saturday morning, no weather watches have been issued — but Denver7 forecaster Katie LaSalle said it'll be a good idea to keep your eye on the skies today.
"Later on today, we'll introduce the chance for for stronger thunderstorms capable of some pockets of heavy rain, large — up to ping pong-sized hail — and it'll really be between dinner-time and 10 o'clock tonight that we see that risk," said LaSalle. "We'll be here to let you know of any severe-warned thunderstorms."
Here's how severe weather Friday unfolded across northeastern Colorado.
A tornado near Akron was captured by multiple photographers just before 6 p.m.
The National Weather Service (NWS) issued multiple tornado warnings and alerts for large, damaging hail including the ominous alert on a cell near Stoneham and Williard in Weld County which said: “a destructive storm" would "contain baseball-sized hail."
The NWS’ storm report showed at 5:50 p..m., 3.10” hail or apple-sized stones were spotted 9 miles ESE of Prewitt Reservoir where a tornado warning was also issued Friday afternoon.
Law enforcement at 5:29 p.m. confirmed a tornado near Prewitt Reservoir "or 16 miles northwest of Akron, moving southeast at 25 mph," said NWS forecasters.
A tornado warning was also issued for Washington County and the NWS said golf ball-sized hail was possible.
'Cone tornado on the ground'
During the 6 p.m. hour is when photographers caught sight of the tornado near Akron.
Dr. Daniel Swain or @Weather_West on X shared a photo and this post:
“Cone tornado on the ground, with multiple additional gustnado/landspout spin-ups nearby. 6 mi NW of Akron around 545pm. #COwx”
Landon Moeller or @Landon_wx on X took his incredible shot at 5:53 p.m.
'More to come'
The severe storms kept Denver7 meteorologist Danielle Grant busy in the weather center and she said there’s more to come.
“Unfortunately the weekend is setting up to be very similar,” said Grant. “Potentially even here in Denver, too, so not ideal – especially if you’re going to be out at the pool or maybe have other outdoor plans.”
You can download the Denver7 mobile app to take the radar with you in case storms fire up near you this Memorial Day weekend.
“Severe weather is enroute to Colorado both Saturday and Sunday,” added Grant. By mid-afternoon (Saturday) in Denver, by around 3 p.m., we should see a chance of showers and storms begin to fire up.
“A couple of them could potentially turn severe,” said Grant
The Denver metro will be under a “marginal” or lowest threat of a severe storm, but it is a possibility they could fire much like what happened on Friday over northeastern Colorado.
Strong-to-severe storms could form between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. across the Denver metro and Front Range.
Saturday will be the warmest day over the next several in Denver with a high of 73 degrees expected before dropping down to the mid-60s with showers on Sunday.Memorial Day in Denver starts out dry and cooler before afternoon storms roll in and the high reaches 65 degrees.
As for Friday’s tornadoes, most of the touchdowns were reported in Logan and Washington Counties.
“We’ll see when the National Weather Service heads out there to see if there was any damage, nothing major reported as of yet,” said Grant. “The hail was also incredible impressive,”
That’s when we’ll find out the strength of Friday’s tornadoes.
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Friday's severe weather threat comes afterfour tornadoes touched down east of Denver on Colorado's plains.
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