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F2 tornado in El Paso County, Colorado

Tornado May 28, 2001 · El Paso County, Colorado

F2
Rating
0.3 mi
Path length
30 yd
Path width
5
Injuries
$100K
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 30 yards (0.02 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What F2 means. This tornado was rated on Fujita’s original scale, used until 2007. F2 meant considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted; the scale paired it with winds of 113–157 mph, figures later judged too high, especially toward the top of the scale, and revised downward in the Enhanced Fujita scale. Ratings then, as now, came from the damage.

What the National Weather Service wrote

A slow moving supercell thunderstorm stayed over the Ellicott area of eastern El Paso county for over an hour on Memorial Day evening. For over an hour, heavy rain and large hail pelted the area. Then another thunderstorm cell merged with the supercell, causing a brief time of extreme winds and three small tornadoes. A large mesocyclone developed, and the extreme winds rotated around its northeastern quarter. All of the debris from the damaged structures was moved to the west-northwest or west. Straight-line and twisting microburst winds, in some areas causing F2 damage, damaged or destroyed nearly 100 mobile homes, many occupied. Embedded within these winds, three tornadoes occurred. One, rated F2, struck the junior-senior high school building, totally destroying nearly one half of the structure. That tornado lifted briefly and set down again about 3/4 of a mile northwest of the school building and destroyed several mobile homes. Another tornado, rated F1, occurred about one mile west of the school building, flipping a mobile home.

Began near Ellicott (38.8167, -104.3500).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

5 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

F2 El Paso CountyF0 Las Animas CountyF0 El Paso CountyF0 El Paso CountyF0 El Paso County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 5248637. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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