The tornado outbreak that has battered the central and western U.S. this week expanded into Colorado, with the Storm Prediction Center confirming a touchdown 6 miles south-southwest of New Raymer — the first verified twister in the state during this multi-day event.
Survey teams also reconfirmed damage tracks in Wyoming, verifying tornadoes 2 miles west of Burns and 4 miles south-southeast of Gun Barrel. In all, the Storm Prediction Center has now logged three confirmed tornado reports across Colorado and Wyoming in the latest 48-hour survey period, adding to the seven touchdowns confirmed a day earlier across Arizona, Minnesota and Wyoming. The National Weather Service offices covering both states currently have three alerts active as crews continue assessing damage.
The tornadoes were far from the only hazard. The same 48-hour SPC survey window recorded 26 large hail reports and 154 damaging wind reports nationwide, underscoring that the severe weather driving this outbreak has been as much about hail and wind damage as about tornadoes. The volume of wind reports in particular points to a broad swath of thunderstorm damage extending well beyond the tornado-confirmed counties in Colorado and Wyoming.
With the immediate threat from Tuesday’s storms now past, the Storm Prediction Center’s reports are being written in the past tense — confirming what already touched down rather than warning of what’s coming. That marks a shift from earlier in the week, when active tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings were still being issued in real time across the outbreak zone.
Still, the fact that new states keep entering the confirmed-damage tally four days into the event shows how large and long-lived this system has been. What began with Minnesota touchdowns earlier in the week grew to include Arizona and Wyoming, and now Colorado, spanning a stretch of the country from the desert Southwest to the Northern Plains. Communities near Denver weather and Cheyenne weather remain in the broader zone the National Weather Service is monitoring for any additional storm development, though no new watches were noted in the latest confirmed-report data.
The Storm Prediction Center said damage assessments are ongoing in the affected counties, and additional confirmations from the same storm system remain possible as survey teams continue fieldwork. No additional tornado watches were included in the latest data, suggesting the immediate severe threat from this round of storms has eased even as the confirmed damage toll continues to be tallied.