EF2 Tornado — Washington, Colorado

2025-05-23 · near Messex, Washington, Colorado

Event narrative

Well documented tornado that moved south parallel to CO-63, remaining generally in open areas 2-3 miles west of CO-63. We obtained the width (400 yds) of the tornado based on power poles snapped along County Road 50. One single family residence was struck with minor damage to the house, and significant damage to all outbuildings and trees on the property, consistent with EF-1 damage. Debris from the property was carried approximately one mile to the south-southwest. Further south of the damaged property, power poles were snapped and thrown a considerable distance (25 yds), consistent with EF-2 intensity. The power poles were on the west side of AA, just north of County Road 48. Video evidence and the results of the storm survey, suggest that the tornado dissipated just before 6 PM MDT.

Wider weather episode

A strong supercell thunderstorm tracked south-southeast across far northeast Weld, southwest Logan and northwest Washington Counties. The storms produced large hail, up to 3 inches in diameter and also three tornadoes across Logan and Washington Counties during the afternoon hours of May 23rd, including one EF-2 and one EF-1. Most of the observed damage was snapped power poles and trees. One single family residence sustained EF-1 damage, but there were no injuries reported. This supercell also produced a swath of golf ball to baseball sized hail, with one ICECHIP report of over 3 inch diameter hail in northern Washington county.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (40.3800, -103.2700)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1298724. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.