Wild weather assaults area this weekend

As if a stretch of wintry weather in late spring wasn’t enough for southern Colorado, several tornadoes were seen Saturday in eastern El Paso County.

Sheriff’s deputies said they watched several twisters touch down in the Calhan area, ready to respond in case of damage or injuries.

However, neither was reported Saturday.

Some of the funnel clouds reached the ground near the junction of Highways 94 and 71. Scott and Geneva Hall were there to record one of them on video.

The Halls, who live in the Pueblo County town of Rye, said they are avid tornado chasers.

“We probably put 200 miles on the car today,” Scott Hall said. “About 10 minutes into it, we started seeing some rotation and started (recording). The rotation finally dropped down. We watched the tornado go up and down, probably about 10 or 15 times.”

Meanwhile, much of the area received hailstorms for the third consecutive day, though it was considered to be weaker than a Thursday storm that hit the north side of Colorado Springs.

U.S. 24 through Ute Pass at Manitou Springs closed for three hours because of a storm and the threat of a flash flood. The town also closed its main street, Manitou Avenue, as a precaution for a short time.

Several people waited out the closure at the Manitou Springs Library until it closed at 3 p.m. Saturday, then went to a Red Cross evacuation center at the nearby Historic Congregational Church until the highway reopened at 4 p.m.

A family of four from Green Mountain Falls said it was their first time being caught at the highway roadblock but didn’t seem to mind the wait.

The rest of the region received a steady diet of rain, sleet and snow, with at least 8 inches of snow falling in Woodland Park.