Tornado touched down during Thursday’s storm along Pikes Peak Highway
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- America's Mountain is usually spared the impact of summer storms that we've seen at lower elevations this season, but that wasn't the case Thursday.
Just before 2:30 p.m., the National Weather Service announced that a survey team had confirmed the damage on Pikes Peak came from a tornado along the Pikes Peak Highway between mile markers 5 and 8.
The two-person team assessed the damaged areas earlier Friday.
"The environment was conducive to development," said Stephen Rodriguez, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Pueblo. "Piecing that information along with the damage that we saw today, allowed us to make a determination that a tornado did occur here yesterday. Based on the damage we saw, we estimated the wind speeds at 108 mph. Within the last 20 years, we can't recall whether there's actually been a tornado on Pikes Peak. In terms of highest elevation, the highest in Colorado occurred in 2012, and that was on Mt. Evans -- 11,900 feet."
The U.S. record for a tornado at highest elevation, he said, is 12,156 feet, in July 2004, in Rockwell Pass at California's Sequoia National Park.
According to the NWS, the preliminary rating of the Pikes Peak twister is EF1 -- relatively weak on a scale of 0-5, but still plenty damaging to hundreds of trees.
A visitor on the mountain at the time, Brad Carroll, sent us photos showing many trees blown down.
Only a few of the trees fell on the highway and have since been removed.
Skyler Rorabaugh, the highway manager, recalled the hectic atmosphere when the storm hit.
"I started heading down the highway, just to evaluate what the damage was," he explained. "Do we have people stranded in different places, do we have hikers out in that area, do we need to get Search and Rescue, or do we need to get out there and respond with our ranger teams to make sure that everyone was safe?"
Rorabaugh said that rangers directed tourists to Summit House and the Glen Cove gift shop for safety, or advised them to remain in their vehicles; others caught in the storm apparently found shelter on their own.
"The tornado warning was lower on the highway," he said. "The biggest threat at the summit was lightning."
He also said that two power poles fell during the storm, prompting officials to use backup generators which provided only temporary power; that remained the case as of Friday afternoon as some visitors needed flashlights to use restrooms and the summit exhibit areas were fairly dark.
"The poles are in Colorado Springs Utilities' jurisdiction, and a crew has been working on that," Rorabaugh said. "We hope to have power restored for the weekend."
There were no injuries reported.
Friday was a typically busy summer day on the highway, and visitors reflected on how they would have responded if they'd been caught in a similar storm on Pikes Peak.
"Hopefully, I would have been able to find some sort of shelter," said Nikki Norberg, part of a family of five from South Dakota. "But a ravine may not provide much shelter. You'd also have to worry about falling trees. Staying in your car can be dangerous, but you have few options when you're on a mountain and a storm quickly moves in."
