Tornado in El Paso County, Colorado

A line of thunderstorms began to propagate through

the north side of Colorado Springs around 4:00 PM MDT on Thursday,

August 8, 2019. As the line passed through Gleneagle a tornado warning

was issued for a tight radar indicated rotation. As the storm moved towards

the east-southeast reports of walls clouds were reported. At 4:29 PM MDT we

received a report of possible debris being lifted into the rotation as seen

by SKYWARN spotters around Black Forest, CO. Shortly after hearing the report

eyewitness videos were broadcast by local TV media of a tornado over an open

across the southern portion of Black Forest, CO. No discernible damage was

relayed to our office by media, emergency management, or spotters, therefore

it was decided to not conduct a on-site storm survey.

During the afternoon and evening hours of August 8, 2019, ample monsoonal flow pushed into the high terrain of the Rampart Range and the Wet Mountains. Rather slow moving heavy rain storms developed and eventually pushed off towards the east across the Front Range and eventually onto the eastern Colorado plains.

Heavy rain, large hail, damaging winds, flash flooding, and even a tornado were all reported during the afternoon and evening hours.

The most impressive storm ended up being a supercell thunderstorm that developed just northwest of the US Air Force Academy, ahead of a larger bow echo complex. This storm began to show signs of rotation just north of Colorado Springs as it passed by the city to its northeast. The regional ARES network was buzzing quite a bit with hundreds of eyes on this storm as it began to develop a funnel cloud just west of Black Forest. As the storm continued to drift east-southeast the funnel began to descend towards the ground ultimately touching down just west of Black Forest. Several eye witness accounts, video recording, and live camera shots showed the skinny tornado moving through an empty field producing no discernible damage.